University of Southern Maine USM Digital Commons

Maine Collection

1896

The Story of New Sweden as Told at the Quarter Centennial Celebration of the Founding of the Swedish Colony in the Woods of Maine, June 25, 1895

Stanley J. Estes

Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.usm.maine.edu/me_collection

Part of the Geography Commons, Other History Commons, Rural Sociology Commons, Social History Commons, and the United States History Commons

Recommended Citation Estes, Stanley J., "The Story of New Sweden as Told at the Quarter Centennial Celebration of the Founding of the Swedish Colony in the Woods of Maine, June 25, 1895" (1896). Maine Collection. 3. https://digitalcommons.usm.maine.edu/me_collection/3

This Book is brought to you for free and open access by USM Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Maine Collection by an authorized administrator of USM Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected].

THE STORY

OF

NEW1?~,-,;:d>,"''•"c,H-f'"'? SWEDEN ~;#A-

AS TOLD AT

THE QUARTER CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION

OF THE

FOUNDING OF THE SWEDISH COLONY

IN THE WOODS OF

MAINE

JUNE 25, 1895

PORTLAND, MAINE LORING, SHORT & HARMON 1896 Thi8 volume i8 publi8hed under the direction of MICHEAL U. NoRBERG, JoHAN A. WESTIN, and OLOF. P. FoGELIN, Committee on Publication.

The extemporaneou8 8peeche8 at the Celebration were 8tenographed, and the volume edited, by STANLEY J. ESTES.

'rHE THURSTON PRINT PORTLAND, ME. CONTENTS.

PAGE THE CELEBRATION, 9

OPENING ADDRESS BY THE PRESIDENT, F. 0. LANDGRANE, 1S

PRAYER BY REV. D. s. JENKS, • 15

ADDRESS OF WELCOME, BY REv. MICHAEL U. NoRBERG, 17

ORATION BY HoN. 'VVILLIAM W. THOMAS, JR., 25

ADDRESS OF HoN. WILUAM W. THOMAs, SR., 103

ADDRESS OF HoN. CHARLEs F. DAGGETT, 105

ADDRESs oF HoN. HERBERT L. SHEPHERD, . 106

ADDRESS oF HoN. CHARLES A. BouTli~LLE, M. C., 107

ADDI~Ess oF CoL. FRED N. Dow, • . 115

ADDRESS oF HoN. ALBION LITTLE, 118

ADDRESs OF HoN. SETH L. LARRABEE, . 121

ADDRESs oF HoN. EDWARD WIGGIN, 122

LETTERS FROM

I-ION. HENRY B. CLEAVES, Governor of Maine, 125 I-ION. THOMAs B. REED, Speaker U. S. House of Representatives, • 125 I-ION. EUGENE HALE, United States Senator, 126 I-ION. WILLIAM P. FRYE, United States Senator, . • 126 I-ION. NELSON DINGT,EY, JR., Representative to Congress, 127 HoN. SETH L. MILLIKEN, Representative to Congress, • 127 GEN. JoSHUA L. CHAMBERLAIN, ex-Governor of Maine, 12$ RoN. SIDNEY PERHAM, ex-Governor of Maine, • 129 . GEORGE W. NORTON, ESQ., Editor Portland Express, 129 PAYSON TUCKER, ESQ., Gen'l Manager Maine Central R. R., • 130 FRANK w. CRAlii, EsQ., Gen'l Manager Bangor & Aroostook R. R., 130

CLOSING ExERCISEs, 130

APPENDIX, . 132

NEW SWEDEN

QUARTER-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION.

1870. JUNE 25. 1895.

TUESDAY, JUNE 25, 1895, was a day of jubilee in New Sweden. On that day, Maine's Swedish settle­ rnent celebrated the twenty-fifth year of its existence -the quarter-centennial anniversary of the day when the . first little Swedish colony of Maine sailed from old Sweden, to make a new home in the primeval forests of the Pine Tree state. The day dawned gloomily. A dull rain fell from a leaden sky and the cold north wind blew. But the rain soon ceased, though threatening· clouds still obscured the heavens, and the wind dropped to a refreshing sumrner breeze. At an early hour all roads leading to New Sweden were crowded with carriages and pedestrians. Along the smooth, level turnpike from Caribou rolled a con­ tinuous procession of hundreds of vehicles. Among 2 •

10 THE STORY OF NEW SWEDEN. those driving toward the Swedish settlement were American and Swedish farmers, with their wives and children, from all the country round about; Swedes from every section of Maine and frorn several of the other New England states, and distinguished visitors and honored guests from many of the cities and towns throughout our cornmonwealth. Most of the latter had arrived at Caribou the pre­ vious evening. _ They had con1e over the Maine Cen­ tral, and the new Bangor and Aroostook railroads, on the first through express train from Portland to Caribou, and had accomplished the entire journey in ten hours. Attached to this train was a special Pull­ man car, kindly placed at the disposition of the guests of New Sweden by the courtesy of Payson Tucker, Esq., the genial vice-president and general manager of the Maine Central road. This car was under. the charge of Col. Henry S. Osgood, who left nothing undone for the comfort of the guests. After driving five n1iles from Caribou, the long line of carriages reached the border of our Swedish colony ; but it was difficult to discern where the American settlen1ents ceased and the Swedish began. The belt of forest dividing them had been cut through, and the litt]e clearings of the earlier Swedish settlers, which, a few years ago, only notched the forest here and .there along the wood roads, had been enlarged till one clearing met the other, and the visitors now drove through continuous fields, dotted with Swedish cot­ tages, and green with the growing crops. Most THE CELEBRATION. 11 noticeable were the great potato fields, for which Aroos­ took County has become fainous, where the straight rows of potato vines stretch far away over the rolling country until green rows and the mellow, brown earth between are blended together by distance. After driving three Iniles through Swedish farms "Capitol hill" was reached. Here the stars and stripes floated fro1n a tall flag-staff in front of the '' Capitol," and here a magnificent view lay spread out before the eye. To the west, the fertile fields of the colonists, with their farmhouses, churches and schools, extended for miles, like a broad unbroken swath cut through the woods; beyond, towards the south and west, the for­ est was indented with the ample "fellings'' of the Swed­ ish settlers in Woodland, Perhain, and the new Swedish plantation of W estmanland; to the north, four miles away, the broad green acres of J eintland, cut out of a great forest hillside, sloped toward us; northwest, mile on mile, could be seen the clearings of Lebanon and Stockholm, and those along the· Fort K'ent road - bright green patches nestling in the dark green woods -while all around, beyond, undulating away to the dim blue hills on the horizon, lay somber and silent the unbroken forest. At the Capitol, a large wagon decorated with flags and the bright green boughs of the birch, and drawn by four powerful horses, wheeled into the road in front of the carriage of the founder of New Sweden, and took its place at the head of the procession. The wagon contained the Swedish military band, which 12 THE STORY OF NEW SWEDEN.

at once began playing " Hail to the Chief." Enliv­ ened by the strains of martial music, and escorted by the Swedish band-wagon, the visitors drove on for a mile over the west road~ then turning north, soon passed into a woodland avenue a.nd ascending a forest ridge, entered a grove of gigantic rock maple trees. Here, in one of" God's first temples''- and a grander one could scarce be found- the Swedes had prepared a vast open-air auditorium. Upon a cleared area in the center had been placed long rows of benches suffi­ cient for two thousand people, and fronting these was erected a large tribune with seats for two hundred. Over the tribune hung the flags of America and Sweden, and over all spread the leafy canopy of the forest. Here too were gathered together a great multitude - Swedes and Americans, men, women and child­ ren- they not only crowded the open area, but they filled the grove on every hand as far as the eye could penetrate. Literally "the woods were full of them." The invited guests were at once escorted to seats on the tribune, and the great audience immediately filled the benches, and crowded around outside in a semi­ ·circle, standing in throngs between the trunks of the trees- the pillars of the temple. Farther away the tearns were drawn up and horses picketed throughout the grove, while beyond were picnic parties, seated in . groups or strolling through the woods. The rays of the sumtner sun, breaking ever and anon through the .cloud:S of morning, lighted up the green forest, the bright flags, and the earnest faces of the audience, and OPENING ADDRESS. 13 falling at intervals upon the many-colored dresses of the Swedish maidens as they flitted from light to shade in the sylvan depths, gave a brilliant, kaleidoscopic effect to the surrounding forest.

EXERCISES IN THE GROVE. Four thousand people were present in the grove when Mr. Landgrane, one of our Swedish farmers, called the assemblage to order. , The exercises were opened by music from the Swedish band. Then the president said :

OPENING ADDRESS BY MR. FRANK OSCAR LANDGRANE, PRESIDENT OF THE DAY. We meet to-day in commemoration of an event which wrought a con1plete change in the social and econon1ical condition of this place. We meet firstly, to thank God for all good things he has given us and for the care he has taken of us, both before and after our arrival in New Sweden. Secondly, to honor those who conceived and executed the first act in this drama. Thirdly, to show what an industrious people can accomplish in a generation, and last but not least for the purpose of meeting our outside friends, among whom we have so many who have assisted us whenever opportunity offered. To all of you, my friends, we have extended an invitation to be present with us on this day, that we may through friend- 14 THE STORY OF NEW SWEDEN. ship and brotherly love be cemented together as one people, and as fellow-citizens of one nation. We hope and trust that any shortcomings on our part in this effort ·will be met by you with indulgence. We have been han1pered very rnuch in this our un­ dertaking by those terrible forest fires which have

F. O. LANDGRANE,

PRESIDENT OF THE DAY.

raged in this and adjoining towns, and which for two weeks have kept us busy fighting that great and ·awful master of the elements. However, to-day we are thankful to the great God above, that we are permitted to meet you, our friends, on this occasion, and endeavor to make you happy by being happy PRAYER BY REV. D. S. JENKS. 15

ourselves. Knowing that all good things are done by the grace of God,. and that therefore we owe Him our gratitude, I shall call upon Rev. D. S. Jenks of Caribou, to open the exercises upon this the twenty­ fifth anniversary of the settlement of New Sweden by offering thanks to God for the blessings He has be­ stowed upon us in the past, and to pray for our wei- , fare in the future.

PRAYER BY REV. D. S. JENKS, OF CARIBOU. Almighty God, our Heavenly Father, we thank Thee for this hour. We praise Thee that in con­ nection with all the experiences and circumstances that come to us while we are here in this world, we can associate Thy name, Thy wisdom and Thy good­ ness. We bless Thee for the occasion that calls us together at this time, for the privilege that comes to many hearts and homes on this day as the people recount the goodness of God to them, individually, and to this community at large. We thank Thee for the pros­ perity of this community in which we are 1net at this time. We pray that it may always be with thankful hearts that we shall consider our national prosperity and rernember that it is Thou who hath planted our nation, and the communities that make up our nation. We praise Thy name for the band of men and women who years ago settled this colony, and that its 16 THE STORY OF NEW SWEDEN. settlement is connected closely with thoughts of Thee. We believe that Thou art the leader of men in all good and great enterprises, and as we see what has been accomplished here, we can trace it to the guid­ ance and goodness of our God and our Father in heaven. We thank Thee that interwoven with all the na­ tional prosperity of this community there is also the religious life that has played so large a part in Inold­ ing the minds, the thoughts and motives of this people. We thank Thee for the churches that have been organized here, and we believe Thou hast or­ dained that material prosperity and religious activity go hand in hand. We are glad, not only that the gospel has taken root here, but that in sweet union with the gospel of Christ, has been raised the flag of our country. We thank Thee for the loyalty of these citizens, who have come from afar to our common country; and we pray that the blessings that have rested upon them in the past, rnay be the promise of what Thou shalt bestow in the future. We praise Thee that when the gospel and the thoughts of our own Union take their place in men's minds, there co1nes the breaking down of all barriers which exist between xaces, and all differences that exist between men. We thank Thee for that bond of union which unites us to-day in our thoughts, in our hopes, in our national and religious life. ADDRESS OF WELOOME. 17

Hear this our prayer, as we pray that this day may indeed be a day of thanksgiving and rejoicing in the hearts of all who have a part and an interest in these exercises. To Thee we look continually for Thy blessing and guidance, that prosperity may be ever ours. In the name of Christ our Lord. Amen.

A Swedish choir of four tnale and four female voices beautifully sang:

I love my home among the hills.

Then followed the

ADDRESS OF WELCOME,

BY REV. MICHAEL ULLRICH NORBERG.

PASTOR OF THE FIRST SWEDISH EVANGELICAL LUTHERAN CHURCH OF MAINE. At the request of the people of the town of New Sweden I bid you, Hon. W. W. Thomas, Jr., the founder of this colony, and all the ladies and gentle­ men in your company, a most cordial welcome to New Sweden, upon this twenty-fifth anniversary of the day when the people of this town were led into the woods of Maine. We feel, of course, most grateful, and not a lit­ tle surprised that we are deen1ed worthy of a visit from so many of the most honorable citizens of our State, and I assure you it gives me great pleasure upon this occasion, and upon this day, in the name of the settlers of this town, to welcome so many of the most dis­ tinguished citizens of :J\1aine to see and bear witness to the great results of our labors. 18 THE STORY OF NEW SWEDEN.

It was a little band of men and women that entered these woods twenty-five years ago. They had left their native land, and many of them fathers and mothers, sisters and brothers, for an unknown shore to make themselves a better home, perhaps, than they

M. U. NORBERG,

PASTOR OF THE LUTHERAN CHURCH. had left. Who were these people and where did they come from ? There is a beautiful country far away toward the icy north. It is a glorious land, with snowy, bold and magnificent mountains, numberless rivulets, where crystal waters vary in shade and color as the rays of the sun strike upon them on their journey towa.rds ADDRESS OF WELCOl\IE. 19 the ocean, tumbling in countless cascades and rapids, filling the air with the music of their fall. It has also many exquisite sylvan landscapes, so beautiful by the sea and lakes, by the hill and fountain sides, by the river and in the glades, that one delights to linger by thern. Frorn the last days of May to the end of July, in the northern part of this country, the sun shines day and night upon its mountains, rivers, lakes, fields and farms, and so it is that Sweden and Norway may be called the'' Land of the Midnight Sun." You may have been in different countries where there is no winter and where flowers grow all the year round, but yon have never seen such nights as these. This country is inhabited chiefly by a flaxen-haired and blue-eyed race of men, brave, simple, honest and good. They are the descendants of the N orthrnen and Vikings, who in the days of old, when Europe was degraded by the chains of slavery, were the only people that were free and governed by laws made by themselves, and when emerging from the rock-bound and stormy coast for distant lands, for war or conquest, were the embodiment of courage by land and sea. They have left to this day an undying impression of their characters on the countries they overran and in which they settled. England is chiefly indebted for the freedom she possesses and the manly qualities of her people to this admixture of the Scandinavian blood, which through hereditary transmission makes .her prominent as descended from the Scandinavian rather than the Anglo-Saxon. 20 THE STORY OF NEW SWEDEN.

In that beautiful country and arnong that people, Mr. 'rhomas gathered together a little band of men and women that left their country and their homes without any written obligation, but with simple faith in the honor of their leader, to Inake a new hon1e ju the wilderness, in a strange land and among strangers. You who are born in An1erica and know the language from your cradle-days and the customs of the country, do not understand the hardships and toil of the people who came here as strangers, although they may come fro1n an intelligent and educated people. Of the twenty-two men who came over with Mr. Thomas, there are but five living here to-day, who now sit on this platform, and it gives me great pleasure to show you those who have borne the heat and bur­ den of the day. A few have left the town, and the rest of that little band of pioneers have left for their eternal home beyond the river. New Sweden is known not only to the citizens of Maine but to the whole Union. For that we are indebted to Mr. Thomas who has always spoken well of his "children in the woods,'' and a good reason he has had, not only because of their good behavior but especially for the great results of their labor. Gentlemen and fellow citizens of Maine, I do not need to boast of the citizens of this town. Take a , careful view of the colony and you will find beautiful farms, well cultivated; big barns and storehouses for the produce of the farms; nice residences; good busi­ ness structures; large and commodious schoolhouses ADDRESS OF WELCOME. 21 for the education of our children; beautiful churches, and a law-abiding people who fear God and do what is right to everybody. [Applause.] When we then consider that we have had only twenty-five years to accomplish this, we can with safety say to the brethren, "Well done, good and faithful servants." You, Mr. Thomas, in founding New Sweden, have erected a living monument and in your obituary will be written, "unselfishness, great foresight and the wish to do good to your fellow men." [Applause.] You were the author and the executor. You not only con­ ceived the idea but stood at the helm and carried it out, and it has proved a success if we may judge by looking at the results. Twenty-five years ago these early pioneers followed you over the ocean. They followed you because they had faith in you, and with­ out that faith in you none of these peo pie would have made what is now New Sweden. You are not only the founder of the colony, but you have always cared for it as a father, and your children in the woods have always looked up to you as such, and they will remem­ ber you as ]father Thomas as long as tradition lasts and history lives. [Applause.] For this and many other things which you have accornplished you are and will be honored. May your life be long and happy and may you see, before ;ron leave this earth, New Sweden pass the point of your highest anticipations. [Applause.] And when your work is finished here below, if it were possible, we would put on your head a crown of everlasting stars. [Great Applause.] 22 THE STORY OF NEW SWEDEN.

My friends, let this be a lesson to us all. Let us remember that he who makes two blades of grass grow where only one grew before is greater than the gen­ eral of a victorious and conquering army, whose for­ ward march means more or less destruction to life and property. Let us strive to be wise and so act that when we lay down our implements on earth our record of good deeds to hurnanity will be evidence that we have existed for a good purpose. Let us remember, if we are law-rnakers or farmers, if we are on the pin­ nacle of national fame or the modest occupants of a pioneer cabin, that history will inevitably dig to the bottom of facts and find the n1otives of our acts, be, they greedy or unselfish, be they founded upon phi­ lanthropy or cold cruelty to our fellow beings.. When looking around us we see the wild land in all directions and when we compare it with the few towns which exist throughout this vast wilderness, it seems as if all laws of economy and progress are directly violated. There are to-day thousands upon thousands of strong arms and willing minds ready to take a life-long part in bringing this land from its wild state, into a productive and civilized community, and make it profitable to themselves, the State and the Nation- .only give them permission to do, so. But selfishness . and greed on one side, assisted by laws made to order in the past, leave it a rendezvous for wolves and bears. History will in course of time dig at the bones of those who have been so short-sighted or careless in ADDRESS OF WELCOME. 23 offices of trust as to permit the public lands of Maine to fall into the hands of those, who do not us~ the1n for the purpose of advancing civilization, enlighten­ ment and progress. [Applause.] For the assistance of the State of Maine, rendered this colony in its infancy, we are all very thankful, and will leave it to you, gentlernen, to decide if it was a profitable investment. If you think it has so been, select another spot and nurse it with the milk of paternity and patriotism. [Applause.] To the representatives of the press I will say this. Perhaps you expected more. Well, twenty-five years is a very short time looking backward. Twenty-five years ago this town was all covered with virgin for­ est. This had to be cut down, burned, cleared, the stumps broken up, the land leveled, and during that time bread and butter had to be earned at something else, such as making shingles, cutting lumber, etc. So, rny friends I am proud of what we have done and for what we have left undone I beg your indulgence. [Applause.] At least, I wish to say that it fills my heart with joy and gladness when I think that I am speaking not to Scandinavians, or any other kin of people, but to citizens of the United States who are gathered to­ gether as a big family below the stars and stripes in "the land of the free and the h01ne of the brave." [Applause.]

Music by the band followed. 24 THE STORY OF NEW SWEDEN.

The President then said: ''I have now the very great pleasure to introduce to you the father of this colony, Hon. W. W. Thomas, jr., the orator of the day." Mr. Thomas was greeted with loud and long-contin­ t;ted applause as he stepped to the front of the platform. It was several Ininutes before he was permitted to commence his address. ORATION

BY

RON. WILLIAM WIDGERY THOMAS, JR.

THE FOUNDER OF NEW SWEDEN.

SWEDISH COLONISTS, ''MY CHILDREN IN THE WooDS" OF M.A.INE, .A.ND You, MY AMERICAN FRIENDS, WH0 HONOR US WITH YOUR PRES­ . ENCE HERE TO-D.A.Y- MY COUNTRYMEN ONE .A.ND ALL:- TWENTY-FIVE years ago this very day there sailed away frorn the shores of Sweden a little colony of fifty-one Swedes. This adventurous band then left home and country, and faced the perils of a voyage of four thousand miles, and the hardships and toils of making a new home in the wilderness of a strange land without so much as the scratch of a pen by way of contract or obligation, but with simple faith in the honor and hospitality of Maine. The colony was composed of twenty-two men, eleven won1en, and eighteen children. All the rnen were farmers; in addition, some were skilled in trades and professions ; there being among them a lay pas­ tor, a civil engineer, a blacksmith, two carpenters, a basket-maker, a wheelwright, a baker, a tailor, and a 3 26 THE STORY OF NEW SWEDEN.

wooden-shoemaker. The wornen were neat and indus­ trious, tidy housewives, and diligent workers at· the spinning-wheel and loom. All were tall and stalwart, with blue eyes, blonde hair and cheerful, honest faces ; there was not a physical defect or blemish among them, and it was not without strong feelings of state pride that I looked upon them as they were mustered on the deck of the steamship Orlando, and antici­ pated what great results might flow from this little beginning for the good of our beloved commonwealth. Seven years prior to this time, early in 1863, I had first set foot in Sweden, sent there by President Lin­ coln as one of the thirty "war consuls '' of the United States. During a three years' 1·esidence in Sweden I had acquired the Swedish language; had become familiar with the history, manners and cus­ torns of the people, and had learned to know, respect and admire the manner of men and women they were. I had beheld also the thousands of sturdy Swedish emigrants that every year sailed away from Swedish ports for America, to help subdue the forests and open up the prairies of our own broad land. I had done whatever lay in _my power to augment this ernigration, and had seen with gratification the number of Swedish ernigrants increase by thousands during my sojourn in the Northland. But there was one· fact connected with this emigra­ tion that to me- a son of the Pine Tree state­ was anything but satisfactory. None of all these emigrants settled in Maine ; all passed by our state and went to build up and make strong and great the ORATION BY HON. W. W. THOMAS, JR. 27 states of the West and Northwest. Yet no state or territory in the lJnion is better adapted by nature to become the home of Swedes than the northern, wooded state of Maine. Here and in the Northland the same tnountains rear their altars to heaven ; the same woodland lakes reflect the twinkling stars ; the same forests clothe the hillsides; the same swift, clear rivers rush leaping to the sea; the same deep harbors notch the coast, and the same islands by the thousand guard. the shores. It is an interesting fact also, that with few excep­ tions, as the French in Canada, immigrants frorn Europe take up the same relative position in America they occupied in the continent of their birth. In fact there seem to be certain fixed isothermal.lines between whose parallels the in1migrants from the Old World are guided to their homes in the New. Thus the Ger­ mans from the center of Europe settle in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and our other middle states ; the French and Spanish from Southern Europe and the shores of the Medit~rranean, make their homes in Louisiana, Florida, and all along the Gulf of Mexico ; while the Swedes from the wooded north, fell the forests and build their log-cabins in Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota, Wash­ ington, Oregon-in our northern range of states­ the Pine Tree state forms one of this northern, wooded range- Swedish imrr1igration flows naturally to us. And no better immigrants than the Swedes ever landed on American· shores. Honest and industrious, law-abiding and God-fearing, polite and brave, hospit­ able and generous, of the same old northern stock as 28 THE STORY OF NEW SWEDEN. ourselves, no foreign-speaking immigrants learn our language more quickly, and none become more speed­ ily Americanized or make better citizens o£ our great Republic. Did Maine need immigration? Yes; surely. Maine is a state of great, but largely undeveloped, resources. Our seacoast, indented all over with har­ bors, invites the commerce o£ the globe ; our rivers offer sufficient power to run the factories of the nation, while our quarries can supply the world with building rna terial. In the northwestern portion of our state also, there was and still is a wilderness domain, whereon is scarce a settler, larger in area than the state o£ Massachusetts, covered with a stately £orest of valuable trees, possessing a soil of unusual depth and fertility, and watered by plentiful streams. Yet, notwithstanding all these advantages, the cen­ sus o£ 1870 revealed the startling fact that while the United States as a whole had increased over seven and a h~l£ millions in population in the previous decade, our own State of Maine had paused and gone ba~k­ ward. In 1870, Maine numbered one thousand three hundred and sixty-four less inhabitants than she did ten years before. With the single exception of our neighboring state of New Hampshire, Maine was the ·only state in t~e Union that had retrograded in popu­ lation from 1860 to 1870. Was this a m01nentary halt in our advance, or was it the beginning of our decline ? This was a moment~ ·ous question ; £or states, like men, cannot stand still, they must grow or decay. ORATION BY HON. W. W. THOMAS, JR. 29

That irnmigration of some sort was a necessity, and that Scandinavian immigration would be the best for us, I think was quite generally admitted. Indeed the general subject of Scandinavian itnmigration had been briefly presented to the attention of the Legislature as early as 1861, by Gov. Washburn in his annual mes­ sage. But how could Scandinavian hnrnigrants be procured? And how could they be retained within our borders, if once we succeed in inducing them to come among us? These were unsolved problems, and the doubters were rna:ny. Our own sons and daughters, to the manner born, were deserting Maine for the West. Would not our Scandinavians, provided we succeeded in getting then1, do the same, and settle among the great masses of their countrymen already established in the western states? Again one attempt to procure Swedish immigrants for Maine had already been tried, and had ended in complete failure. A company of Maine rnen, incorpor­ ated as the "Foreign Emigrant Association of Maine," had recruited, in 1864, some three hundred Swedish laborers and servants in Sweden and paid their passage across the Atlantic. These immigrants landed at Que­ bec, where they all, with one accord, disappeared. Not one of them ever arrived in Maine; and the asso­ ciation dissolved with a loss of many thousand dollars. With the exception of a few scattered Swedes that had from time to time drifted into our seaboard cities and towns -less than one hundred in all- there were no Swedes in Maine. 30 THE STORY OF NEW SWEDEN.

Such was the condition of Maine, and such was the condition of the immigration problem on my return· from Sweden to my native state at the close of 1865. The conviction had gradually forced itself upon me, that it would ,be impossible to attract or retain any considerable number of individual Swedes within the limits of our state, until we first procured and firmly established somewhere upon the soil of Maine a colony of picked Swedish immigrants. Such a colony with its churches and schools, its Swedish pastors and its Swedis~ homes, its Swedish customs and holidays and festivities, it seemed to me, would constitute a nucleus around which the Swedish immigration of the future would gather, a central point whose attractive force would ever hold the scattered Swedes, who went out to service, or settled elsewhere in Maine, within the borders of our state. But how could such a colony be procured, and how could it be established? This proble1n I had gradually worked out in my own mind, and had arrived at a definite, practical plan. My plan was this : - 1. Send a commissioner of the State of Maine to Sweden. 2. Let him there recruit a colony of young Swedish farmers- picked men- with their wives and children. · No one, however, was to be taken unless he could pay his own passage and that of his family to Maine. 3. A Swedish pastor should accompany the colony, that religion might lend her powerful aid in binding the colonists together. ORATION BY HON. W. W. THOMAS. JR. 31

4. Let the commissioner lead the colony in a body, all together, at one time, and aboard one ship, frorr1 Sweden to America. Thus would they be made acquainted with one another. Thus, also, would they have a leader to follow and be prevented from going astray. 5. Let the comrr1issioner take the Swedes into our northern forests, locate then1 on Township Number 15, Range 3, west of the east line of the state, give every head of a farnily one hundred acres of woodland for a farm, and do whatever .else might be necessary to root this Swedish colony firmly in the soil of Maine. Then all State aid was to cease, for it was confidently expected when once the colony was fast rooted in our soil it would thrive and grow of itself, and throughout the future draw to Maine our fair portion of the Swedish immigration to the United States. Such was my plan. I had a strong and abiding faith that it could be accornplished. Imrnediately on my return frorn Sweden I began, and for four years I continued, to preach the faith that was in me, both in our legislative halls and among our people. At last my colleagues, Ron. Parker P. Burleigh and Ron. William Small, commissioners on the settlement of the public lands of Maine, united with me in recom­ mending niy plan of immigration in our official report

James M. Stone, chairman of the committee on immi­ gration, placed the merits of the plan before the 32 THE STORY OF NEW SWEDEN.

House of Representatives in an eloquent speech. The friends of the enterprise throughout the state rallied to its support, and on March 23, 1870, an act was passed authorizing my plan of Swedish hnmigra­ tion to be tried. The act established a Board of Imn1igration, con­ sisting of the governor, land agent and secretary of state. On March 25, two days after the passage of the act, the Board appointed me commissioner of immigration. The fate of my plan was thus placed in my own hands. Having successfully arranged all prelin1inaries, I sailed from America, April 30, and landed at Gothen­ burg, Sweden, on t.he sixteenth of May. It was a bright spring morning when I set foot once more on Swedish soil, but brighter than the dawn was the opportunity now open to me to accomplish an under­ taking, which for years had been the dream of my life, for the good of my native state. A head office was at once established at Gothen­ burg. Notices, advertisements and circulars describ­ ing our state and the proposed in1migration, were scattered broadcast over the country. Agents were employed to canvass the northern provinces, and as soon as the ball was fairly in motion, I left the office at Gothenburg in charge of a trusty agent, Capt. G. W. Schroder, and traveled extensively in the interior of "Sweden, distributing documents and talking with the people in the villages, at their homes, by the roadside, and wherever or whenever I met them. Familiar with the Swedish language and people I was enabled ORATION BY HON. W. W. THOMAS, JR. 33 to preach a crusade to 1\t.laine. But the crusade was a peaceful one, its weapons were those of husbandry, and its object to recover the fertile lands of our state from the dominion of the forest. To induce the right class of people to pay their way to settle among us seemed indeed the most diffi­ cult part of the whole im1nigration enterprise. I therefore deemed it expedient to take this point for granted; and in all advertisements, conversations and addresses, to dwell rather on the fact that, as only a lin1ited number of farnilies could be taken, none would be accepted unless they brought with thern the highest testimonials as to character and proficiency in their callings. The problem which was thus taken for granted soon began to solve itself. Recruits for Maine began to appear. All bore certificates of character under the hand and seal of the pastor of their district, and all who had worked for others brought recommendations from their employers. These credentials, however, were not conside:r:ed infallible, some applicants were refused in spite of them, and no one was accepted unless it appeared clear that he would n1ake a thrifty citizen of our good state of Maine. In this way a little colony of picked men ·.with their wives and children, was quickly gathered together. The details of the movement, the arguments used, the objections met, the .multitude of questions about our state asked and answered, would fill a volume. I was repeatedly asked if Maine were one of the United States. One inquirer wished to know if Maine lay alongside Texas, 34 THE STORY OF NEW SWEDEN.

while another. seeker after truth wrote, asking if there were to be found in Maine any wild horses or crocodiles This ignorance is not to he wondered at, for what had Maine ever done prior to 1870 to make herself known in Sweden. N~ither was the co]ony recruited without opposi­ tion. Capital and privilege always strive to prevent the exodus of labor, and someti1nes are reckless as to the means they use. It is sufficient, however~ to state that all opposition was silenced or avoided. On June 23, the colonists, who had been recruited from nearly every province of Sweden, were assembled at Gothenburg; and on the evening o£ that day - midsummer's eve, a Swedish festival- I invited them and their friends to a collation at the Baptist Hall in that city. Over two hundred personA were present, and after coffee and cake had been served, according to Swedish custom, addresses were made by S. A. Hedlund, Esq., member of the Swedish parliament, our agent, Capt. Schroder, one of the leaders of the Baptist movement in Sweden, and myself. The exercises were concluded by a prayer from Pastor Trouve. At this meeting the colonists were brought together and made acquainted, their purpose quickened andinvigor­ ated, and from that hour the bonds of common inter­ est and destiny have bound all the individuals into a community. Such a knowledge of Maine and its resources was also imparted by the speakers, that the very friends who before had sought to persuade the colonists not to desert their fatherland, exclai1ned " Ah, if I could only go too ! " ORATION BY HON. W. W. THOMAS, JR. 35

In August, 1637, the Swedish ship of war Kalmar Nyckel, accompanied by a s1naller vessel, the Fogel Grip, set sail from Gothenburg for America, with a Swedish colony .on board, which fo'nnded the first New Sweden in the New World, on the banks of the Delaware. Two hundred and thirty-three year~ later,. at noon of Saturday, June 25, and just forty days after my landing in Sweden, I sailed from the same Gothenburg in the steamship Orlando, with the first Swedish colonists of Maine. A heavy northwest gale, during the prevalence of which the immigrants were compelled to keep below while the hatches were battened down over their heads, rendered our passage over the North Sea very disagreeable, and so retarded our progress that we did not reach the port of Hull till Monday evening, June 27. The next day we crossed England by rail to Liverpool. Here was an unavoidable delay of three days. On Saturday, July 2, we sailed in the good stearnship City of Antwerp of the Inman line, for America. The passage over the ocean \vas a pleasant one, and on Wednesday, July 13, we landed at Halifax. The good people of this city fought shy of us. Swedish immigration was as novel in Nova Scotia as in Maine. No hotel or boarding-house would receive ·us, and our colony was forced to pass its first night on this continent in a large vacant warehouse kindly placed at our disposal by the Messrs. Seaton, the agents of the Inman stearnships. Next day we con­ tinued our journey across the peninsula of Nova 36 THE STORY OF NEW SWEDEN.

Scotia and over the Bay of Fundy to the city of St. John. July 15, we ascended the St. John River to Freder­ icton by steamer. Here steam navigation ceased on account of low water; but two river flatboats were chartered, the colony and their baggage placed on board, and at five o'clock next morning, our colony was en route again. Each boat was towed up river by. two horses. The boats frequently grounded and the progress up stream was slow and toilsome_, but the weather was fine and the colonists caught fish from the river and picked berries along the banks. Near Florenceville the first misfortune befell us. Here, on Tuesday, July 19, died Hilma C. Clase, infant daughter of Capt. Nicholas P. Clase, aged nine months. Her little body was properly embalmed, placed in a quickly constructed coffin, and brought on with the colony. " We cannot leave our little one by the way," said the sorrow-stricken parents, ''we will carry her through to our new home." On the afternoon of Thursday, J u1y 21, the flat­ boats reached Tobique Landing. Six days had been spent in towing up from Fredericton. The journey is now accomplished by railroad in as many hours. All along our route from Halifax to Tobique the inhabi­ tants came out very generally to see the new comers, . and there was an universal expression of regret, that so fine a body of imtnigrants should pass through the Provinces instead of settling there. At To bique the colonists debarked and were met by Hon. Parker P. Burleigh, land agent and member of the Board of ORATION BY RON. W. W. THOMAS, JR. 37

Immigration. We obtained lodgings for the colony on the hay in Mr. Tibbit's barn, and Mr. Burleigh and I driving round from house to house, buying a loaf of bread here, a loaf there, a cheese in another place, and milk wherever it could be procured, got together supplies sufficient for supper and breakfast. Friday morning, July 22, teams were provided for the Swedes and their baggage, and at eight o'clock the Swedish immigrant train started for Maine and the United States. The teams were furnished by and nnder the charge pf Mr. Joseph Fisher of Fort Fair­ field. Mr. Burleigh and I drove ahead in a wagon, then came a covered carriage, drawn by four horses. This contained the women and children. Next were two three-horse teams with the men, followed by a couple of two-horse teams containing the baggage. So we wound over the hills and at ten o'clock reached the iron post that marks the boundary be­ tween the dominions of the queen and the United States. Beneath us lay the broad valley of the Aroostook. The river glistened in the sun and the white houses of Fort Fairfield shone brightly among the green fields along .the river bank. As we crossed the line and entered the United States, the American flag was unfurled fron1 the foremost carriage, and we were greeted with a salute of cannon from the village of Fort Fairfield. Mr. Burleigh stepped fron1 the wagon and in an appropriate speech welcomed the colony to Aroostook County, Maine, and the United States. I translated the speech and the train moved on. Cheers 38 THE STORY OF NEW SWEDEN.

waving of handkerchiefs, and every demonstration of enthusiasm greeted us on our way. Shortly after crossing the line an incident occurred which showed of what stuff the Swedes are made. In ascending a hill the horses attached to one of the immigrant wagons became balky, backed the wagon into the ditch and upset it, tipping out the load of baggage. The Swedes instantly sprang fr01n the carriages in which they were riding, unhitched the horses, righted the wagon, and in scarcely Inore time than it takes to tell it, reloaded their ton and ~ half of baggage and then ran the wagon by hand to the top of the hill. This was the first act of the Swedes in Maine. At noon we reached the Town Hall at Fort Fairfield. A gun announced our arrival. Here a halt was made. A multitude of people received us. The Swedes got out of the wagons and clustered together by themselves, a little shy in the presence of so many strangers. The assembly was called to order by A. C. Cary, Esq., and a meeting organized by the choice of Hon. Isaac Hacker as chairrnan. Mr. Hacker after some perti­ nent remarks introduced Judge William Srnall, who welcomed the Swedish immigrants in a judicious, elaborate and eloquent address. He was followed by the Rev. Daniel Stickney of Presque Isle in a stirring and telling speech. The remarks of these gentlemen were then given to the Swedes in their own tongue by myself, after which at the request of the Swedes I expressed their gratitude at the unexpected and gener­ ous hospitality of the citizens of Aroostook. The ORATION BY HON. W. W. THOMAS, JR. 39

Swedes were then invited to a sumptuous collation in the Town Hall. The tables groaned with good things. There were salmon, green peas, baked beans, pieR, pudding, cake, raspberries, coffee, and all in profusion. At two o'clock the Swedes resumed their journey, gladdened by the ·welcome and strengthened by the repast so generously given them by the good people of Fort Fairfield. The procession passed up the fer­ tile valley of the Aroostook- the stars and stripes still waved " at the fore." Many citizens followed in wagons. Along the route every one turned out to get a good look at the new comers. A Swedish youth of twenty struck up an acquaintance with an Ameri­ can young man of about the same age. It mattered not that the Yankee did not speak a word of Swedish, nor the Swede a word of English, they chattered away at each other, made signs, nodded and laughed as heartily as though they understood it all. Then they picked leaves, decorated each other with leafy gar­ lands, and putting their arms around one another marched along at the head of the procession, singing away in the greatest good fellowship, as good friends as though they had known each other for a lifetime, and perfectly regardless of the little fact that neither of them could speak a word the other could under­ stand. Youth and fraternity were to thern a common language and overleaped the confusion of tongues. AS' the immigrant train halted on a hilltop, I pointed out the distant ridges of this township rising against the sky. "Det utlojvade Landet"- "The prom­ ised land " - shout the Swedes, and a cheer goes 40 THE STORY OF NEW SWEDEN.

along the line. Late in the afternoon we reached the bridge over the Aroostook River. A salute of cannon announced our approach. Here we were met by a concourse of five hundred people with a fine brass band of sixte.en pieces, and escorted into the picturesque village of Caribou. Hon. John S. Arnold delivered an address of welcome, and the citizens invited us to a bountiful supper in Arnold's hall, where also the settlers passed the night. At this supper one of the good ladies of Caribou happened to wait upon our worthy land agent, and getting from him a reply in a language she understood, was over­ joyed and exclaimed, "Why, you speak very good English for a Swede ! " Next n1orning the Swedish hnmigrant train was early in motion accompanied by some hundred and fifty citizens of the vicinity. One farmer along the route put, out tubs of cold water for our refresh­ ment. I thanked him for this. "Oh, never mind," he replied, " all I wanted was to stop the Swedes long enough to get a good look at them." We soon passed beyond the last c1earing of the American pioneer and entered the deep woods. Our long line of wagons slowly wound its way atnong the stumps of the newly­ cut wood road, and penetrated a forest which now for the first time was opened for the abode of man. At twelve o'clock, noon, of Saturday, July 23, 1870, just four months from the passage of the act author­ izing this enterprise, and four weeks from the depart­ ure of the immigrants from Sweden, the first Swedish colony of our state arrived at its new ho1ne in the ORATION BY HON. W. W. THOMAS, JR. 41 wilds of Maine. As the waggon train stopped in the woods, a little south of where the Swedish capitol now stands, the Swedes instinctively drew together in a little group around me, and here in the shadow of the forest primeval we devoutly thanked God, who had led us safely on our long journey, and fervently prayed for His blessing and guidance in the great work that lay before us. Here too I baptised the township "NEW SWEDEN," a name at once conunemorative of the past and auspi­ cious of the future. Here in behalf of ~he State of Maine I bade a welcome and Godspeed to these far travelers, our future citizens, and here at the south­ west corner of the cross roads, under a camp of bark and by the side of a rill of pure spring water, Swedes and Americans broke bread together, and the colonists ate their first meal on the township, where they were to hew themselves hornes out of the forest. All around us was an unbroken wilderness. A gigantic forest covered all the land, stretching away over hill and dale as far as the eye could reach. In these ')ast northern woods, the blows of settler's ax had never resounded, through their branches the smoke from settler's cabin had never curled. Here roamed the moose, and prowled the bear, and here the silence of midnight was broken by the hooting of the arctic owl.

One thousand years ago the great Scandinavian sea­ king Rollo sailed out from the Northland with a fleet of viking ships. Landing on the coast of France, he 4 42 THE STORY OF NEW SWEDEN. subjugated one of her fairest provinces. Here the N orthn1en settled, and from them the province is called to this day Normandy. Eight hundred years later the descendants of these Northmen, speaking French, sailed from Normandy to this continent and settled Acadia. When driven from their homes by the British fleet, a detachment of Acadians came up the St. John River and settled on the interval, where now stands the city of Fredericton. Expelled from their homes a second tin1e by the English, they followed up the St. John to Grand Falls. British ship~s cannot sail up these falls, said they, so a hundred years ago they built their cottages above the falls, along the fertile valley of the upper St. John, some twenty miles north of New Sweden. There to-day dwell thousands of Acadian French. Twenty-five years ago, a little company of Swedes sailed forth from the same Scandinavia, whence issued Rollo and his vikings, and settled New Sweden. So these two branches of Scandinavian stock, sepa­ rated in the ninth century, are now brought together again after the lapse of a thousand years, and dwell side by side in the woods of Maine.

There are few better towns in Maine for agricul­ tural purposes than New Sweden. On every hand the land rolls up into gentle hard-wood ridges, covered with a stately growth of maple, birch, beech, and ash. In every valley between these ridges flows a brook, and along its banks grow the spruce, fir, and cedar. The soil is a rich, light loam, overlying a hard layer ORATION BY HON. W. W. THOMAS, JR. 43 of clay, which in turn rests upon a ledge of rotten slate, with perpendicular rift. The ledge seldom crops out, and the land is remarkably free from stones. New Sweden lies in latitude 4 7° north_, about the same latitude as the city of Quebec. The boundaries of this township were run by J. Norris, Esq., in 1859. It was then designated as Township No. 15, Range 3, west of the east line of the state, which name it bore for eleven years, until the advent of the Swedes~ Subsequently the township was set apart by the State for settlernent, and in 1861 the best part of the town was run out into lots :for settlers. These lots contained about one hundred and sixty acres each. The State surveying party consisted of' Ron. B. F. Cutter, of Standish, surveyor; A. P. Files, Esq., of Gorham, chain­ mart; Ron. L. C. Flint, of Abbot, explorer, and three assistants. The work was comrnenced the last of August, 1861, and finished October 22, of the same year. This surveying party found a cedar tree 1narked by J. Norris in 1859 as the southeast corner of the town, and the lotting of the town was begun at a cedar post standing two links southwest of this cedar tree, which post was marked '' T. No. 15, R. 3, Lot 144, B. F. Cutter, 1861, ~" (the latter character being Cutter's private mark). And so this township stood for nine years- set apart for settlement, largely run out into lots, but without a settler.

The Board of Immigration very prudently refrained from n1aking any preparation for the proposed colony 44 THE STORY OF NEW SWEDEN.

until it knew the result of my mission to Sweden. When, however, it appeared fron1 my letters that this mission was a success, and that a Swedish colony would surely come to Maine, the Board at once set about Inaking suitable preparations for the reception of the Swedes. This duty devolved upon Hon. Parker P. Burleigh of the Board, and it is fortunate the work fell to such tried and able hands. In the latter part of June, 1870, Mr. Burleigh proceeded to Aroostook County. Here he instituted a relotting of this town ship, reducing the size of the lots from one hundred and sixty acres, which for nine years had been offered to An1ericans, with no takers, to lots of one hundred acres for the Swedes. The surveying party was under the charge of that old and experienced state surveyor, the Hon. Noah Barker. Mr. Burleigh con­ tracted with Hon. L. R. King and Hon. John S. Arnold, of Caribou, to fell five acres of forest on each of the twenty-five lots. Ile also bushed out a road into the township and commenced building twenty-five log-houses. In addition, Mr. Burleigh bought and forwarded to the township necessary sup­ plies and tools for the colony, and in many ways rendered services indispensable to the success of the enterprise. The Swedes had arrived much earlier than Mr. Bur­ leigh anticipated. Only six of the log-houses had been built, and these were but partly finished, only two of them having glass in the windows. On our arrival, the supplies and the commissioner of immigration were stowed in one house, and the Swedes and their baggage

- ORATION BY HON. W. W. THOMAS, JR. 45 packed in the other five. So the colony passed its first night in New Sweden. The next day was the Sabbath. The first religious service on the township was a sad one - the funeral of Hilma C. Clase. The services were held at the bark camp at the corner, and were conducted by Rev. James Withee, of Caribou, an American Methodist. All the Swedes, and many families from Caribou attended the funeral of this little Swedish girl. We buried her on the public lot, in a spot we were forced to mark out as a cemetery on the very first day of the occupancy of this town. So peacefully slept in the wild green wood the only one who had perished by the way. I had anticipated some difficulty in assigning homes to the settlers. Some farms were undoubtedly better than others. To draw lots for them seemed to be the only fair way of distribution; yet in so doing, friends fro,m the same province, who had arranged to help each other in their work, might be separated by several miles. Every difficulty was finally avoided by dividing the settlers into little groups of four friends each, and the farms into clusters of four, and letting each group draw a cluster, which was after­ ward distributed by lot among the members of the group. The division of farms was thus left entirely to chance, and yet .friends and neighbors were kept together. The drawing took place Monday afternoon, July 25. With but two exceptions, every one was satisfied, and these two were imn1ediately made happy by exchang- 46 THE STORY OF NEW SWEDEN.

ing with each other. When this exchange was effected every Swede was convinced that just the right lot had fallen to him and was enabled to find some­ thing or other about his possessions which in his eye made it superior to all others. So surely does owner­ ship beget contentment. After the hon1esteads were thus distributed, Mr. Burleigh, Mr. Barker, and myself, took the Swedes to a hillside " chopping," ·northeast of the cross roads, and showed them the vast woodland wilderness of Maine, stretching away unbroken to the horizon, and await­ ing the ax and plow of the settler. '' Here is room enough for all our friends in old Sweden," said the Swedes. Tuesday morning, July 26, the Swedes commenced the great work of converting a forest into a home, and that work has gone happily on, without haste and with­ out rest, to this day. Much remained to be

every house; and Swedish industry and ingenuity soon transformed every log-cabin into a home. For myself it was a pleasure to share the toils and privations of our new settlers. Every day I was among them from morn till eve. On foot or on horseback I visited them all, even the most remote, and cheered all at their labors; and every night I lay down in my log-house tired but happy, for every day I had beheld sornething done, something tangible accon1plished on the soil of Maine. One hundred acres of forest were granted each set­ tler ; a chopping of five acres had been made on each lot. In nearly every instance, the trees were felled on the contiguous corners of four lots, and a square chopping of twenty acres made around the point where four lots met, five acres of which belonged to each of the four farms. The largest possible amount of light and air was thus let into each lot, and the settlers were better enabled to help one another in clearing. As the choppings had not yet been burnt over, the houses were built outside then1, and being placed in couples on the opposite sides of the road, every household had a near neighbor. Nearly every habitation was also within easy distance of a spring of living water. The houses built by the State in New Sweden were , all of uniform pattern. They were designed by our able and efficient land agent, Hon. P. P. Burreigh, and erected under the immediate superintendence of Jacob Hardison and Judah D. Teague, Esqs., of Cari­ bou. They were built of peeled logs; were eighteen ORATION BY HON. W. W. THOMAS, JR. 49 by twenty-six feet on the ground, on,e and a half stories high, seven feet between floors, and had two logs above the second floor beams, which, with a square pitch roof, gave arnple room for chambers. The roofs were covered with long shaved shingles of cedar, made by hand on the township. The space on the ground floor was divided off by partitions of un­ planed boards, into one general front room sixteen by eighteen feet, one bedroom ten feet square, and pan­ try a,djoining, eight by ten feet. On this floor were

ONE OF THE LOG HOUSES BUILT BY THE STATE IN 1870. four windows; one was also placed in the front gable end above. In the general room of each house was a second-iize Harnpden cooking-stove, with a funnel run­ ning out through an iron plate in the roof. On the whole, these log-cabins in the. woods were convenient and comfortable structures; they presented a pleasing appearance from without, and within were fu1l of con­ tentment and industry. It was of course too late for a crop. Yet I wished to give the Swedes an ocular demonstration that some­ thing eatable would grow on the land. There was a four-acre chopping on the public lot ; this had been 50 THE STORY OF NEW. SWEDEN. partially bur~t over by an accidental spark from the camp-fire at the corner. On this chopping seven Swedes were set at work on July 26, "junking" and hand-piling the prostrate trees. Mr. Burleigh with ax· and hands assisted in rolling up the first pile. Good progress was made, and the next day, Wednes­ day, July 27, we set fire to the piles and sent a young

J, B. HALGREN'S HOUSE IN 1895. lad, Master Haines Hardison, on horseback out to the American settlements in quest of English turnip seed and teeth for a harrow. On July 28, we explored with the surveying party an old tote road running from the Turner place- one of the abandoned American farms in Woodland - out to Philbrick's Corner, on the road to Caribou. We ~ound the tote road cut off thret;-quarters of a mile of the distance to the village, saved a hard hill and a long pole bridge, and gave a good level route. We at once put the tote road in repair and used it exclu­ sively. The present turnpike to Caribou follows sub- ORATION BY RON. W. W. THOMAS, JR. 51 stantially the route of this road from the Turner place, now occupied by Jon as Bodin, a Swede, across Caribou Stream to Philbrick's. Friday, July 29, we sowed two acres on the public lot to English turnips. This was the first land cleared and the first crop sowed in New Sweden. The land was hand-piled, burnt, cleared and sowed within six days after the arrival of the colony. The turnips were soon up and grew luxuriantly, and in November we secured a large crop of fair-size<:J_ turnips, rnany of them being :fifteen inches in circumference. I am well aware that the turnip is regarded as a very cheap vege­ table, but to us who were obliged to haul in every­ thing e.aten by n1an or beast, eight miles over rough roads, this crop was of great assistance. Furthermore it gave the Swedes a tangible proof of the fertility of the soil. On this day the first letters were received; two from old Sweden, directed to Oscar Lindberg. Four basket bottomed chairs for headquarters were hauled in on top of a load of goods - the first chairs in New Sweden- and Harvey Collins, the teamster, brought in word that a Swedish i1nmigrant was at Caribou on his way in. July 30, Saturday, Anders Westergren, a Swede thirty-nine years of age, came in and joined the colony. He sailed as seaman in a vessel from Philadelphia to Bangor, there he took up a paper containing notice of New Sweden, and imrnediately came through to us. He was the first immigrant after the founding of the colony. A stalwart man ~nd skilled in the use of the 52 THE STORY OF NEW SWEDEN. broad-ax, he rendered valuable aid in building hewed timber houses. On this day Mr. Burleigh left us, after a week's efficient help. The fame of the colony was spreading. I received a letter of 1nq uny from seven Swedes in Bloomington, Illinois.

NILS OLSSON, THE FIRST LAY ~IINISTER.

On July 31, the second Sabbath, Nils Olsson, the Swedish lay preacher, held public religious services in the Swedish language at the corner camp. Tuesday, August 2, the immigrants wrote a joint letter to Sweden, declaring that the State of Maine had kept its faith with thern in every particular; that the land was fertile, the climate pleasant, the people friendly, and advising their countrymen emigrating to America to come to the New Sweden in Maine. ORATION BY HON. W. W. THOMAS, JR. 53

This letter was published in full in all the leading · journals throughout Sweden. The only animals taken into the woods by the colony were two kittens, picked up by Swedish children on our drive in from Tobique. On Wednesday, August 3,

WILLIAM WIDGERY THOMAS PERSSON, (First child born in the colony.] a cock and three hens were brought in to,.. Capt. Clase. These were the first domestic fowl on the township. They soon picked up an acquaintance with two wild squirrels,. who became so tame that they ate meal out of the same dish with the fowl. Friday, August 12, the second immigrant arrived .in the colony. He was a native American, a good-sized 54 THE STORY OF NEW SWEDEN.

boy baby, born to Korno, wife of Nils Persson, the first child born in New Sweden. He is alive and well to-day, a young man and a voter. He rejoices in the name of William Widgery Thomas Persson, and is happy in contemplation of the constitutional fact that he is eligible to the. office of president of the United States. On Friday, August 19, Anders Malmqvist arrived from Sweden, via Quebec and Portland. He was a farmer and student, twenty-two years of age, and the first immigrant to us direct from the old country. Sunday afternoon, August 21, occurred the first wedding. I then united in marriage Jons Persson to Hannah Persdotter. The rnarriage ceremony was con­ ducted in the Swedish language, but according to American forms. In the evening was a wedding din­ ner at the Perssons. All the spoons were of solid sil­ ver; heirlooms from old Sweden. Thus within the first month of the colony's existence, it experienced the three great events in the life of man- birth, marriage, death. Between August 10 and 20 nearly all the choppings were fired. On some, good burns were obtained, and nothing but the trunks and larger branches of the trees left unconsurned on the ground; the fire merely flashed over others, leaving behind the whole ,tangled mass of branches, trunks, and twigs to fret the settler. From this time forward till snow fell, every Swede that could be spared from the public works was busily engaged from sunrise to sunset with ax and brand on his clear- . ing, junking, piling, and burning the logs-clearing ORATION BY HON. W. W. THOMAS, JR. 55 the land for a crop. New Sweden became a landmark for twenty miles around. From her hills arose " a pillar of cloud by day" and "a pillar of fire by night." By September 15, large patches of land were siw­ cessfully burnt off and cleared, and the· Swedes com­ menced sowing an acre or half-acre each with winter wheat or rye. Sixteen acres in all were sowed with rye and four with wheat Meanwhile the colony steadily increased. Now and then a Swedish immi­ grant dropped in, took up a lot, received an ax and went to work. September 14 a detachment of twelve arrived, and October 31 twenty more followed, direct from Sweden.. There were two more births, and on N ovemLer 5, I saddled my horse, rode through the woods and stumps to the West Chopping, and offici­ ated at the second marriage, uniting in the bonds of matrimony Herr Anders Frederick Johansson to J ungfru Ofelia Albertina Leonora Amelia Ericsson. 1'he spirit of colonization posses~ed even the fowl. Although at an untirnely season of the year, one of Capt. Clase's hens stole a nest under a lallen tree in the woods, and on September 24, came back proudly leading eleven chickens. Game was plenty. I caught hundreds of trout in the lakes beyond the northwest corner of the township and shot scores of partridges while riding through the woods from clearing to clea,r­ ing. This .garne was divided among the Swedes and made an agreeable diversion from the salt-pork diet of our. c·amp life. Every Sabbath divine service was held by Nils

ORATION BY HON. W. W. THOMAS, JR. 57

Olsson, the Swedish lay minister and a Sunday-school was soon started, which is still in successful operation. The log-houses ·made comfortable homes for each Swedish family, but I soon became convinced that a large, central building was absolutely necessary for the public and social life of the colony. By the wise forethought of Hon. Noah Barker, the surveyor of the township, a lot of fifty acres had been reserved for public uses at the cross ro.ads in the center of the settlement. Here, on the twentieth of Sep­ tember, we commenced digging the cellar for a public building on a commanding slope of land. We began hewing out the frame of the building and shaving shingles for the roof the same day. On Fri­ day, October 7, we raised the frame. Work was pushed rapidly forward, and on Friday, November 4, four weeks from the raising, the house was finished with the exception of lathing and plastering, and the vane was placed in position on top the tower, sixty­ five feet from the ground. This building is thirty by forty-five feet on the ground; has a cellar walled up with hewed cedar seven and one-half feet in the clear, is twenty feet stud, and divided into two stories each ten feet high. The first floor contains a storeroorn thirty feet square, and two offices fifteen feet square each. The second story is a hall thirty by forty-five feet on the floor, ten feet stud on the sides, arching up to fifteen feet in the clear in the center. In the large room below were stowed provisions and tools for the colony. The offices became the headquarters of the co1nmissioner of immigration, and the hall was 5 58 THE STORY OF NEW SWEDEN. used for many years as a church, schoolhouse, town­ house, and general rallying-place for the colony. In the spring, too, when the immigrants flocked in, it served as a "Castle Garden," where the Swedish families slept, cooked and ate under a roof while they were selecting their lots and erecting a shelter of their own. From the fir8t this structure has been called by the Swedes the "Capitol." It has been the heart of the colony. It at once gave character and stability to the settlement, encouraged every Swede in his labors, and has been of daily need and use. The Swedish Capitol is till standing to-day, and though shorn of its ornamental tower is otherwise in a good state of preservation. The dwelling-houE!es erected by the State were built of round logs piled one on the other, with the spaces between open to wind and weather. On the eigh­ teenth of October there raged a :fierce storm of wind, sleet and rain. The wind whistled through the open log-houses, and all night long we could hear the crash ·of falling trees blown down by the gale. In the morning I found myself barricaded by a tall spruce that had fallen across my doorway, and my nearest neighbor arrived to tell me there were eight trees down across the road between his house and mine. 'Fwo good choppers soon cut out the fallen trees frotn the roads ; but the storm warned us that winter was coming. So the Swedes ceased for a time clearing their land, and went to work fitting up their houses for winter. They first split out plank from the near- ORATION BY HON. W. W. THOMAS, JR. 59

est spruce trees, and taking up the floor nailed a tight plank under-floor to the lower side of the beams. The spaces between the beams were then compactly filled with dry earth and the upper floor-boards planed and replaced. A ceiling of matched boards was now put on overhead, and the room made perfectly tight above and below. The walls of round logs were then hewed down inside and out, the interstices_ having been first" chinked up" with moss and then filled in with matched strips of cedar. The walls were thus tnade as even and perpendicular as those of a timber house, and every building completely defended against the cold and blasts of winter. Early in Noveinber, I secured places for the winter, among the farrners and lumbermen of the vicinity, for all the Swedes who wished to work out; thirty were thus supplied with labor at from ten to twenty dollars a month, including board and lodging. Supplies were hauled in for those families who were to pass the win­ ter in the woods, and they were made as comfortable as possible. On November 13 was held the first meeting at the Capitol, and here I distributed to the colonists the certificates of their lots. They received them with eager eyes and greedy hands. The State of Maine extended a helping hand to thib infant colony and guarded it with fostering care. But in so doing the State only helped those who helped themselves. The Swedes did not come among us as paupers. The passage of the colony of the first year from Sweden to Maine cost· over four thousand dol- 60 THE STORY OF NEW SWEDEN. lars, every dollar of which was paid by the Immi­ grants themselves. They also carried into New Sweden over three thousand dollars in cash, and six tons of baggage. Let this· one fact be distinctly understood. The Swedish immigrants to Maine from first to last, from 1870 till to-day, have all paid their own passage to Maine. The State has never paid a dollar directly or indirectly, for the passage of any Swede to Maine. At the close of 1870, in reviewing the work already accomplished, it was found that every Swede that started from Scandinavia with 1ne, or was engaged by me to follow after, had arrived in Maine and was set­ tled in New Sweden. No settler had left to rnake him a home elsewhere, but on the other hand our immigrants had already bought, paid for, and sent home to their friends across the water, five tickets from Sweden to Maine. So healthy was the climate of our northern woods, that for the first year-for 1870-there was not a day's sickness of man, woman, or child, in New Sweden. The results of this enterprise to our State, which were thus achieved in 1870, the year of its inception, were briefly summed up in my official report for that year as follows: RESULTS IN 1870. · A colony of one hundred and fourteen Swedes-fifty-eight men, twenty women, and thirty-six cl;lildren-have paid their own passage from Sweden and settled on the wild lands of Maine. Seven miles of road have been cut through the forest; one hundred and eighty acres of woods felled, one hundred acres ORATION BY HON. W. W. THOMAS, JR. 61

hand-piled, burnt off and cleared for a crop, and twenty acres sowed to winter wheat and rye. Twenty-six dwelling-houses and one public building have been built. A knowledge of Maine, its resources and advantages, has been scattered broadcast over Sweden ; a portion of the tide of Swedish immigrati.on turned upon our state, and a pr~tctical be­ ginning made toward settling our wild lands and peopling our domain with the most hardy, honest and industrious of immi­ grants.

As illustrating how favorably the New Sweden of Maine already began to be regarded by the old country from which it sprung, I call attention to the following admirable letter, written to the Governor of Maine, by Dr. S. A. Hedlund of Gothenburg, Sweden. Dr. Hedlund is editor of a prominent Swedish newspaper, a member of the Swedish parliarnent, and one of the first writers and thinkers of Sweden.

To the Honorable Governor of the State of Maine : SrR,- You must not wonder, sir, that a Swedish patriot can- .. not regard without feelings of sadness the exodus of emigrants, that are going to seek a better existence in the great republic of North America, leaving the homes of their ancestors, and giving their fatherland only a smiling farewell. It will not surprise you, sir, that this must be a very melancholy sight to the mind of the Swedes, and that it must become yet more so on the thought that many of these emigrants are meeting destinies far different from the glowing prospects that were held forth to their hopeful eyes. Not only Sweden will lose her children, but they will be lost to themselves in the distant new field. The sons and daughters of old Sweden, will they maintain, among your great nation their national character? Will they retain, at least, some remembrance of their native land? We know well, sir, that every mitionality, strong as it may be, will be gradually amalgamated in the new, common, all-absorbing 62 THE STORY OF NEW SWEDEN. nationality of the new world, and it would certainly not be of any advantage, either to America or to civilization, if the different nationalties of Europe were to continue their individ,ual life, with their peculiarities and enmities, on the soil of their adopted country. We regard it, on the contrary, as a special mission of America to absorb and amalgamate all these different European elements. But, sir; will they lose also, these American immigrants, the remembrance of their fatherland? Must the Swedish inhabitors of your country necessarily forget the language and customs of their ancestors ? Will they forget the struggles and victories of their native lana, its good times and bard times? Will they for­ get the mothel' who has born her children with heavy and self­ denying sacrifices, and will they have no feelings left for her love and regret? No, sir; they will not do so, and the great people of America will not require it. You have not received the children of Sweden as outcasts, who will be adopted into the new family only at the price of denying their father and mother. On the contrary, sir, you have given a special impulse to the Swedes, whom you have invited to colonize your state, to hold their native land in honor and remembrance, by giving the new colony, founded in the northern part of your state, the name of " New Sweden;" you have given them also, in Swedish books, opportunity for recalling their fatherland. Your commissioner, Mr. W. W. Thomas, Jr., one evening last summer, assembled his little colony of immigrants to partake of a collation, where good wishes and kind words were exchanged. We, the remaining friends, left with confidence our brethren and sisters in his care; his last and firm assurance was, "All that has been promised will be kept.'' , . Yes, sir; these promises have been kept; but not only that, they have been far surpassed by your generosity. 'I'he poor immigrants, landing on your shores, have been received and greeted with the most friendly welcome. Their homes established, their future secured, they have not been disappointed in their hopes by the difficulties and grievances of the real state of things. ORATION BY HON. W. W. THOMAS, JR. 63

The young colony will probably be the nucleus of an extended colonization, and you will not, sir, I feel sure, find the hardy Swede::! ungrateful and unworthy of your kindness; they would then, surely, be unworthy of their origin. 'l'he colony of New Sweden has requested and authorized the writer of this letter to convey to you, Honorable Governor of the State of .Maine, the expression of their sentiments of deep gratitude, and you will kindly allow me, sir, to add thereto, the expression of the same sentiments of many other Swedes, who have followed the immigrants with sympathies. Allow me, at the same time to expres~ to the people of Maine, who have received their new brethren with so much cordialty, the thanks of the colonists, who have mentioned more especially two gentlemen, Mr. W. W. Thomas Jr., and Mr. P. P. Burleigh, land agent, as objects of their gratitude and high esteem. May the young colony of New Sweden grow and flourish, not only in material strength, but even in developing their moral and intellectual faculties. And may the new population thus add to your State and to your great Republic a good and healthy element of moral power from the old world, and becoming imbued with the spirit of your free institutions, reflect that spirit on their native land ! What we have lost, at present, in the old fatherland, will then not have been lost to humanity; on the contrary, the trees have only been transplanted on a fresher soil, where they will thrive better and give richel' and more abundant fruits. God bless the harvest! God bless your land! I am, sir, with the highest esteem, Your obedient servant, s. A. HEDLUND, Chief Editor of Gothenburg Shipping and Mercantile Gazette. GOTHENBERG, March 25, 1871.

The winter of 1870....:71 was safely and comfortably passed by the Swedes in the woods. They were ac­ custorned to cold weather and deep snow. Their fires crackled brightly and the festivities of Christmas tin1e 64 THE STORY OF NEW SWEDEN. were observed as joyously in the Maine forest as in Old Sweden. In the meantime, active and efficient Ineasures were taken to increase the stream of immigration thus happily started. A circular was printed in Old Sweden describing the voyage of the first colonists, their gen~rous and honorable welcome at the Ameri­ can border, the attractions, healthfulness and fertility of their new homes, the location, extent and produc­ tiveness of the settling lands of Maine, the advantages our State offered to settlers, interesting letters from the Swedish colonists already on our soil, and every other fact and suggestion which semned appropriate or advantageous. This circular was issued early in December, 1870; a month in advance of the circulars of any other state or association. Five thousand copies were distributed, and the information they con­ tained read and discussed at thousands of Swedish firesides during the most opportune time of all the year-the Christmas holidays. Capt. G. W. Schroder was appointed agent in Old, and Capt. N. P. Clase in New Sweden. Large editions of circulars were struck off and distributed in the old country in quick succession; two columns of the " Arnerika," a weekly emigrant's paper, were bought for six months and filled every week with new matter relating to Maine and her Swedish colony; advertise­ ments were also inserted in all the principal news­ papers taken by the agricultural and other working classes, and a brisk correspondence carried on with hundreds intending to emigrate to Maine. ORATION BY RON. W. W. THOMAS, JR. 65

A special agent was employed to travel and distrib­ ute information in the most northern provinces of Sweden, their population being deemed best fitted for our northern state; and another agent, Mr. Carl J ohan Ek, one of our first colonists, was sent back from New Sweden to the Old, well equipped with maps, plans, specimens of Aroostook wheat, rye, corn and potatoes, also maple sugar made by the Swedes in New Sweden; for many in the old country had written "if one could only return to us, and with his own lips tell us what you narrate on paper, we would believe." This last agent was sent out without expense to the State, he charging nothing for his services, and the Inman Steamship Line generously furnishing him with a free passage out and back. A condensed circular was printed in Swedish at Portland, placed in the hands of the pilots of that harbor, and by them distributed on board the trans-Atlantic steamers, while yet miles away from land. __ , Seed thus well and widely sown was soon followed / by a harvest. With the first opening of navigation l in the spring of 1871, Swedish immigrants began to arrive in New Sweden; first, in little squads, then in companies of twenty, thirty and forty, till the immi- : gration of the year culminated in the last week of ) May, when one hundred Swedes arrived via Houlton \ and Presque Isle, followed within five days by two hundred and sixty more by the St. John River. f Provisions and tools for the colony and its expected-J accessions were shipped in March direct to Fredericton, and thence with the opening of navigation up the 66 THE STORY OF NEW SWEDEN.

River St. John to Tobique landing. From this latter place the goods were hauled into New Sweden, a dis­ tance of but twenty-five miles. Seed, consisting chiefly of wheat, rye, barley, oats, corn, beans and potatoes, was early purchased in the neighborhood of the colony and hauled in on the snow. A span of young, powerful draft horses was bought in the early spring to help on the work. They were ein­ ployed in harrowing in the crops, grubbing out and plowing the roads, hauling logs and timber, until November, when they were sold for four hundred and twenty-five dollar.,, the exact sun1 paid for them in the spr1ng. A stable, thirty by forty feet, was erected on the public lot, one hundred feet in the rear of the Capitol; the Capitol itself painted, the first floor, comprising the storehouse and offices, lathed, plastered, finished and furnished, and the hall above lathed and provided with benches and a pulpit. rrhe stable was erected and the Capitol completed before the snow was off. This work was almost exclusively done by Swedes, at the rate of one dollar a day, in payment of supplies already furnished thern by the State. The snow lingered late. Weeks after it had disap­ peared in the nearest villages, it still covered our new clearings in the woods. As soon as the black bu.rnt ground showed itself in considerable patches, we commenced putting in wheat, sowing it partly on the melting snow. The first wheat was sowed May 12 ; rye followed, then came oats and barley. The State horses harrowed in the grain. Then men, women ORATION BY HON. W. W. THOMAS, JR. 67

and children were busy from morning till night hack­ ing in potatoes among the stumps; and last of all, each Swede cleared still a little piece more of land, and put in turnips. Saturday, May 14, Jacob Hardison and I rode into New Sweden on horseback, through a storm of sleet and rain, with nineteen youn~ apple trees lashed on our backs. With these trees we set out the first orchard in the town on the public lot, just west of the Capitol. The trees flourished, and in a few years bore fruit. In the spring of 1871, one hundred and sixty-five acres of land were cleared and put into a crop, in­ cluding the one hundred and twenty-five acres on which the trees were felled the year before by the State. The song birds found us out. The year before the forest was voiceless. This spring, robins, sparrows and chickadees flew into our clearings, built their nests among us, and enlivened the woods with their songs. The birds evidently approved of colonization. All the while the immigrants with their ponderous chests of baggage were pouring in. They filled the hall of the Capitol, the stable, and one squad of fifty from J emptland, camped under a shelter of boards at the corner. Ron. Albert A. Burleigh took the place of Mr. Barker as surveyor. Mr. Burleigh, with an able corps of assistants arrived at New Sweden as soon as practicable to commence surveying in the woods, and pushed on his part of the work with vigor and ability throughout the season. Roads were first laid out in all directions from the Capitol, then lots 68 THE STORY OF NEW SWEDEN. laid off to face the·m. Straight lines were not deemed essential to these ways, an easy grade was everywhere maintained, and hills and swamps avoided. Work­ ing parties of newly arrived immigrants, each in co1nn1and of an English-speaking Swede, were de­ tailed to follow the surveyors and cut out the roads. Thus avenues were opened up in all directions into the wilderness. Bands of immigrants eagerly seek­ ing their farms followed the choppers, and lots were taken up as fast as they were made acc.essible. Some enterprising Swedes did not wait for the working parties, but secured choice lots by ranging the woods in advance ; the principle of "first con1e first served" having been adopted in the distribution of these prizes of land. Thus the stream of immigration that poured into the Capitol, was continually disappearing in small rills throughout the forest. A party of one hundred crowding our accommodations on Monday, would van­ ish before Saturday night. A walk along any wood road soon revealed them; the blows of the ax and the crash of falling trees ~ed to the men, and the smoke curling from a shelter of poles and bark near by, to the women and children. A flash of Swedish humor occasionally enlivened our labors. An immigrant, whose Christian name was Noah, settled on the side of a steep conical hill. Instantly the Swedes called the hill "MoMnt Ararat,'' and as· Mount Ararat it is known to this day. Our main road to the outside world for three miles from the Capitol was simply a passage way cut ORATION BY HON. W. W. THOMAS, JR. 69 through the woods the year before to let in the first . colony. The heavy immigrant wagons and supply teams had since then rapidly worn away the earth; and protruding stumps and deepening ruts rendered the road aln1ost impassable, yet not a day's labor could be spared to it, till the crops were all in. June 26, however, a force of fifteen men and four horses was put upon this important highway. We com­ menced work at the edge of the center chopping, about a stone's throw south of the Capitol; and until October, whatever hands could be spared frorn their own clearings were kept at work on this road. The entire three miles were grubbed out full width of thirty feet through a heavy growth of standing trees ; two miles of this turnpiked in as thorough a manner as any county road in the state, and a substantial bridge ofhewn cedar thrown across the east branch of Cari­ bou Streatn. The road is three-quarters of a mile shorter than the old one, by which the first colony entered New Sweden, curves around, instead of over the hills, and maintains an easy grade througho~t. It was built under the immediate supervision of Jacob Hardison, Esq., than whom no man in Aroostook was better acquainted with everything that pertains to frontier life in the woods of Maine, and who in one capacity or another assisted the Swedish colony from its foundation. In settling New Sweden, my right_ hand man was always "Jake" Hardison. Meanwhile, branch roads were being cut through the woods by sn1aller parties of workmen. One road was made west four n1iles through Woodland into Per- · 70 THE STORY OF NEW SWEDEN. ham, another east toward Lyndon, a third northeast four and one-quarter miles to the Little Madawaska River, a fourth, seven and one-half miles to the north­ west corner of New Sweden_, beside still other shorter connecting roads. Every working party, whether on branch roads, main road, public buildings, or other public works, was in charge of its own special forernan. Each foreman called the roll of his crew every evening, and entered the time of each man in a book provided for the pur­ pose. These time-books were handed in once a week to the State store-keeper, and each workman credited with one dollar for every day's work, payable in the provisions and tools he was receiving from the State. Thus the money appropriated by our State, in aid of the Swedish colony, accomplished a twofold good. It first supplied the Swedes with food and tools, ena­ bling them to live until they harvested their first crop. Second, it was worked out to its full value by the Swedes, on the roads and other public works, which are a permanent public benefit and worth to the State all they cost. State aid to the Swedes was thus a temporary loan, which they repaid in full, the State gaining hundreds of new citizens by the transaction. June 6, 1871, Anders Herlin died, the first death in New Sweden. June 20, Jacob Larsson, a newly-arrived ·in1migrant, was killed in his chopping by a falling tree. Friday evening, June 23, the ·young people observed Midsommars afton- Midsummer's eve, a joyous, Swedish festival. They erected a May-pole at the ORATlON BY HON. W. W. THOMAS, JR. 71 center, decorated it with garlands, festoons of flowers, and green leaves. From the top of the pole floated the American and Swedish flags. They sang ring songs, played ring games, and danced around the May­ pole to Swedish music, till far into the night. In June, arrived an important addition to the colony, the Rev. Andrew Wiren, a regularly ordained minister of the Lutheran church. His ministrations continued for many years. He was ever, not only a pastor, but the "guide, counselor and friend" of his little flock, whose love and confidence he always possessed. On Sunday, J nne 25, 1871, Pastor Wiren held the first Lutheran service in the hall of the Capitol. This was the first anniversary of our sailing from Old Swe­ den, and I availed myself of the opportunity to speak words of praise and encouragen1ent to the colonists. All summer and fall new choppings opened out on every hand; the old clearings were rapidly enlarged ; shelters of poles and bark gave way to comfortable timber houses; barns were built near the growing grain, and everywhere trees were falling and buildings rising throughout the settlement. So Inany people flocking into the woods soon cre­ ated a demand for various trades and crafts. A variety store was opened in August by a Swede, in a co1nmodious timber building near the center. A blacksmith, a shoemaker, a tinman, and a tailor, set up shops near by, and were overrun with business. A sawmill was built at a good water power on Beardsley brook, four miles from the Capitol. The foundations for a grist-mill were also lajd. 72 THE STORY OF NEW SWEDEN.

Quite a speculation in real estate arose. Several farms changed hands at high figures, and one lot of only one acre was sold for fifty dollars cash. It was the corner lot next west of the Capitol, and was sold to build a store on. This store was afterwards altered into a dwelling-house for Pastor Wiren. The crops grew rapidly. Wheat averaged five and rye over six feet in height. One stalk of rye, which I measured myself, was seven feet and five inches

OLD SCHOOL ROUSE. tall. A man stepping into any of our winter rye fields in August, disappeared as completely from view as though he were lost in the depths of ~he forest. Many heads of wheat and rye were over eight inches in length. Harvest time came early. Winter rye was ripe and cut by the middle of August ; wheat, barley and oats early in September. · Crops were raised by thirty families. These ar­ rived the year before. The new-comers could only clear the land of its trees this first season. Of the thirty families, seventeen had built barns in which they stored their grain. The crops of the others ORATION BY HON. W. W. THOMAS, JR. 73 were securely stacked in the field, and though the autun1n was rainy, the harvest was uninjured. As soon as the grain was dry a machine was ob­ tained to thresh it. Three thousand bushels of grain were threshed out, of which twelve hundred were wheat, one thousand barley, and the remainder prin­ cipally rye and oats. Wheat averaged twenty, and yielded up to twenty-five, and rye averaged thirty­ five and yielded up to forty-two bushels to the acre.

OW SCHOOL BOUSE.

The season was late and wet, and much of the wheat was nipped by the rust. In an ordinary year a max­ imum yield of forty bushels of wheat to the acre has been attained. An unusually heavy frost the middle of September, which prevailed throughout New England, killed the potato tops and stopped all further growth of the potatoes, ditninishing the yield one-third. Three hun­ dred bushels to the acre of those earliest planted was nevertheless obtained. and five thousand bushels of potatoes secured, besides several hundred bushels of beets, turnips and other roots.

6 ) 74 THE STORY OF NEW SWEDEN.

On September 30, 1871, all those who had har­ vested a crop were cut off from further receipt of state supplies. These colonists became not only self­ supporting, but delivered to the State, in part payment of their indebtedness, five hundred bushels of potatoes, which were sold to the later-arrived immigrants. On November 15, 1871, state aid was also cut off from every in1migrant of that year who had not wife or children with him. For all such, work for the winter was provided among the American farmers, in the lumber woods, at the tanneries, quarries, or railroads. A free public school was opened in the hal1 of the Capitol, November 13. Pastor Wiren was teacher. He had acquired our language during a four years' residence in the west. There were seventy-seven scholars. The chief study was the English language. To learn to read, write, and speak English was deemed of more iinportance than all else. Pastor Wiren also opened an evening English school for adults. Divine service continued to be held in the public hall both forenoon and afternoon, every Sunday throughout the year; and the Swedish Sunday-school kept up its weekly meetings without the omission of a single Sunday. The attendance on these religious exercises was almost universal. " As soon as the earth could be made to produce grass or fodder, the Swedes began to provide them­ selves with cattle, horses, sheep and swine. They bought, however, no faster than they could pay. If a Swede could not afford a span of horses, ORATION BY HON. W. W. THOMAS, JR. 75 he bought only one; if he could not afford a horse, he provided himself with an ox; if an ox was beyond his purse, he got a steer, and if a steer was more than he could afford, he placed a rope harness on his only cow, and worked around with her till he could do better. Americans, driving in, laughed at these nondescript teams, but all the while the Swedes were teaching us a lesson- to live within our means. On Thursday, September 5, Bishop Neely visited New Sweden and conducted Episcopal religious ser­ vices in the public hall. On Tuesday, September 26, 1871, Ron. Sidney Per­ hain, governor of Maine, and Hon. P. P. Burleigh, land agent, accompanied by friends, made an official visit to the colony. The Swedes, to the number of four hundred, met at the Capitol and gave the officiai party a warm reception. In behalf of the colony I delivered an address of welcome, to which Governor Perham eloquently replied. Swedish songs were sung, speeches made, and every Swede shook hands with the governor. A collation was then served in the storeroom of the Capitol, and iu the afternoon, the roads, buildings and farms of the Swedes were inspected by the governor and land agent, who ex­ pressed themselves highly gratified with the progress of the colony. One great cause of the rapid success of this colony has been the active help the Swedish women have rendered their husbands. Every Swedish wife was indeed a helpmate. She not only did all the house- 76. THE STORY OF NEW SWEDEN.

work, but helped her husband in the clearings amid the blackened stumps and logs. Many of the Swedes cut their logs into lengths for piling with cross-cut saws. Whenever this was the case, you would see that the Swedish wife had hold of one end of the saw; and she did her half of the work too. Once, riding out of the woods, I met one of our Swedish women walking in with a heavy sack on her back. As she passed, I noticed a commotion inside the sack. "What have you got in there ? " said I. "Four nice pigs," she replied. '' Where did you get them ? '' "Down river, two miles beyond Caribou." Two miles beyond Caribou was ten miles frorn New Sweden. So this good wife had walked twenty miles ; ten miles out, and ten n1iles home. with four pigs on her back, srniling all the way, to think what nice pigs ·they were. Another wife, Mrs. Kjersti Carlson, when her husband was sick and her children cried for bread, with her own hands, felled some cedar trees, sawed them up into butts, and rifted out and shaved these butts into shingles, one bunch of which she carried five miles through the woods on her back, to barter at the corner store here for medicine and food for her husband and children. By such toil was this wilderness settled. But that bunch of shingles has become a part of the history of Maine. It occupies to-day an honored place in the Capitol at Augusta, and a Maine poetess has rendered it itnmortal in ·her verse. ORATION BY HON. W. W. THOMAS, JR. 77

The beautiful lines of Mrs. H. G. Rowe, on the heroic deed of this Swedish wife, run thus:

'fhe morning sun shines bright and clear, Clear and cold, for winter is near,­ Winter, the chill and dread : And the fire burns bright in the exile's home, With fagot of fir from the mountain's dome, While the children clamor for bread.

Against the wall stands the idle wheel, Unfinished the thread upon spindle and reel, The empty cards are crost; But nigh to the hearthstone sits the wife, With cleaver and mallet,- so brave and blithe, She fears not famine or frost.

Fair and soft are her braided locks, And the light in her blue eye merrily mocks The shadow of want and fear; As deftly, with fingers supple and strong, She draws the glittering shave along, O'er the slab of cedar near.

Neatly and close are the shingles. laid, Bound in a bunch,- then, undismayed, The Swedish wife uprose : '' Be patient, my darlings," she blithely said, "I go to the town, and you ·shall have bread, Ere the day has reached its close."

Five miles she trudged,- 'twas a weary way; The road was rough, and the sky grew gt·ay With the snow that sifted down ; Bent were her shoulders beneath their load, But high was her heart, for love was the goad That urged her on to the town. 78 THE STORY OF NEW SWEDEN.

Ere the sun went down was her promise kept, The little ones feasted before they slept ; While the father, sick in bed, Prayed softly, with tears and murmurs low, That his household darlings might never know A lack of their daily bread.

In January, 1872, a weekly newspaper, The North Star, was started at Caribou. Every issue of this paper contained one column printed in the Swedish language. This column was edited by Mr. E. Win­ berg, one of our Swedish immigrants, and was exten­ sively read in New Sweden. This was the first paper, or portion of a paper ever published in a Scandinavian language in New England, although the Scandinavians sailed along our coast, and built temporary settlernents on our shores, five hun­ dred years before Coltunbus discovered the islands of our continent. The examination of the first public school, took place March 15, 1872, after a session of four months. rrhe scholars had made wonderful progress in learning our language. Many could speak and read English well, and some had made considerable advance in writing. These school privileges were highly prized. Some of the scholars came to school five miles through the woods, slipping over the snow on skidor­ Swedish snow-shoes. Two stearn rnills were erected and put in operation in the spring of 1872, and a large quantity of shin­ gles and some boards were sawed. The Swedes early became experts in manufacturing ORATION BY HON. W. W. THOMAS, JR. 79 shaved shingles by hand. It was soon admitted by Aroostook traders that the Swedish shingles were the best made in the county. Shopping in New Sweden was almost exclusively barter. Bunches of shaved shingles were the currency which the Swedes carried to the stores of the American traders, and with which they bought their goods. The last mile of our main road was turnpiked in 1872, giving the colony a good turnpike to Caribou. Branch roads were improved. In the matter of government, New Sweden pre­ sented an anomaly. It was an unorganized township, occupied by foreigners, furthermore, no legal organi­ zation could be effected for years, for there was not an A1nerican citizen resident in the township, through whom the first step toward organization could be taken. The ~first two years of the colony I found time to personally settle all disputes between the colonists, organize the labor on roads and buildings, and arrange all matters of general concern. As the colony increased, it becan1e impossible for one man to attend to all the details of this work. A cornmittee of ten was therefore instituted to assist me. Nine of this cornmittee were elected by the colonists, the pastor was the tenth, ex officio. Three went out of office every six months, and their places were filled at a general election. New Sweden was also divided into nine highway districts, and each one of this co1nmittee had charge of the roads in his ?wn district. This decemvirate satisfactorily managed all the municipal affairs of the colony until New Sweden was legally organized into a plantation. 80 THE STORY OF NEW SWEDEN.

Many and strange were the experiences of life in these woods in the early days. One evening Svensson came running up to my office in the Capitol, crying out, " My daughter is lost." His daughter Christine was a little girl, twelve years old, well known and loved in the colony. He had taken her with him in the morning to a new chopping where he was at work, three 1niles into the woods toward the Madawaska River. At noon he had sent her to a woodland spring to draw water for their dinner, but she did not return. Becoming alarmed, he hurried to the spring. There were the tracks of her feet in the moist earth, but the girl was nowhere to be seen. He hallooed and received no answer, and then searched the woods in vain till nightfall. I at once sent out a messenger on each road in the township, warning the men to 1neet at the Capitol next rr1orning at sunrise. Over fifty came, bringing with them all the dogs and all the guns in the colony. We followed Svensson to his clearing, formed a line north and south along the Madawaska road, and at a signal, advanced into the woods, moving west. Each man was to keep in line with and in sight of his next neighbor. Thus the men advanced through the forest for hours, shouting and firing guns. But there came no-answer. At noon two guns were fired in quick succession. Thi~ was the preconcerted signal. The girl was found. She was standing in the bottom of a dense cedar swa1np, on all sides the trunks of fallen trees ORATION BY HON. W. W. THOMAS, JR. 81 were piled up in inextricable confusion. How the child ever got in there was a mystery. She still held the pail, half full of water, in her hand. But she had clasped the bail so tightly in her terror, that her finger nails had cut into the palm of her hand, and blood was dripping from her fingers into the water in the pail. "Why where have you been ?'' joyfully asked the Swedes. "I don't know," she murmured in a broken voice. "What have yon been doing ?" " I don't know." "Where did you pass the night?" " There hasn't been any night," she cried with a wild glare. She was mad. The terrors of that long night alone in the woods had taken away her reason. She was taken home, tenderly nursed, and after a period of sickness, was fully restored to health of mind and body. She then said, that she went to the spring, filled her pail with water, and was just starting back through the woods, when suddenly she saw in the path before her, a bear and a cub. She turned and ran for life. When she dared to look around, she found th~ bear .was not following her. She then tried to walk around to the clearing, where her father was. She kept on and on, crying for her father, till it grew dark, then she recollected no more. The government of the United States recognized this colony at an early day, by establishing a post­ office here, and appointing Capt. N. P. Clase post­ master. The road to Caribou was subsequently made 82 THE STORY OF NEW SWEDEN. a post route, and, weekly paid postal service com­ menced July 1, 1873. Sven S. Landin, one of the colonists, was rnail carrier, although, when pressed with work on his farm, his wife not unfrequently walked with the mail to Caribou and back again, a distance of sixteen and a half n1iles. On October 14, 1873, Ransom Norton Esq., clerk of courts for Aroostook County, visited the colony for the purpose of affording the Swedes an opportunity of taking the first step toward naturalization. On that day one hundred and thirty-three men came forward and publicly renounced all allegiance to the ''King of Sweden and Norway, the Goths and the Vandals,'' and declared their intention of becoming American citizens. In the fall of 1873, the condition of the colony was excellent. The little settlement of fifty had increased to six hundred, and outside of New Sweden there were as many more Swedes located in our state, drawn to us by our Swedish colony. The settlen1ent of New Sweden had outgrown the township of that name and spread over the adjoining sections of Wood­ land, Caribou and Perha1n. The trees on ~200 acres had been felled. 1500 acres of this were cleared in a thorough and superior manner, of which 400 acres were laid down to grass. The m·ops had promised abundance, but an untimely frost that followed the great gale of August 27, pinched the late grain and nipped the potatoes. Still a fair crop was harvested. ] 30 houses, and nearly as many barns and hovels had been built. The colonists ORATION BY HON. W. W. THOMAS, JR. 83 owned 22 horses, 14 oxen, 100 cows, 40 calves, 33 sheep and 125 swine. The schools were in a flourishing condition. Such an advance had been made in English, that most of the children above ten years of age, could read and write our language tolerably, and speak it well. An American visiting the colony had no need of an in­ terpreter, for every child that talked at all, could speak English. I then felt that all the conditions of the plan on which this experiment was made, had been fulfilled. The colony had been recruited in Sweden, trans­ planted to Maine~ fast rooted in our soil, and made self-sustaining. The experiment was an experi1nent no longer. New Sweden was successfully founded, the stream of Swedish itnmigration was successfully started. The infant colony was now strong enough to go alone. On Sunday forenoon, October 19, 1873, I tnet the Swedes at the Cap!tol. Nearly all the settlers, men, women and children were there. I recounted the history of the colony, since the first adventurous little band had met together in old Sweden, spoke such words of friendly counsel as the occasion suggested and justified, and then took leave of the colony I had recruited in the Old World and founded in the New. In my annual report, at the close of 1873, I recom­ mended that all special State aid to New Sweden should cease. I further took pleasure in recommend­ ing that the office of con1missioner of imtngration, which I held, be abolished, since the accomplishment of 84 THE STORY OF NEW SWEDEN. the undertaking rendered the office no longer neces­ sary ; and thus laid down the work, which for four years had occupied the better portion of my life and endeavor. But though my official connection with New Sweden ceased with 1873, this colony has never ceased, and never will cease so long as life remains, to occupy a large portion of my heart, my thoughts and my prayers. And New Sweden has ever continued to meet the fondest anticipations of her friends. Her career fron1 the beginning to this day has been one of constant and unbroken growth, developn1ent and progress. She has never taken a step backward, she has never made a halt in her onward rnarch. Her story forms an unique chapter in the history of Maine. That story I would love to fully recount to you step by step on this festal day when New Sweden celebrates her triumphs. I would fain speak to ·you of the organization of the township into a plantation in 1876, and of its munici­ pal and political life; of our grand decennial celebra­ tion here in 1880, in which three thousand persons, Swedes and Americans, took part; of the dedication of the first Swedish Evangelical Lutheran church of Maine on the san1e day ; of the rise and progress of the Baptist, the Mission and the Advent societies and the building and dedication of their houses of worship ; of the deep religious life of the colony; of our schools and the thorough work they have accomplished, of the build}ng of our roads and bridges; the establishment

86 THE STORY OF NEW SWEDEN. of mills and factories ; how year after year the forest has been felled, and choppings full of blackened stumps transfor1ned into smooth fields of waving grain; how the log cabins have been replaced with substantial two-story frame houses, great barns built, fruitful orchards and gardens set out, and bountiful crops raised; how the Swedes have come to pos­ sess excellent breeds of horses and cattle; how the steer tean1s with rope harness have disappeared, and how the Swe4es drive to-day as good horses as can be found in Aroostook County; how the good repute of our Swedish fellow citizens has risen and risen, until the only question now asked by an American shop keeper is " Are you a Swede? If so you may buy on credit anything and everything you want." All this and much more I would love to recite in detail to you, but the sun of this long summer's day would set before the half could be told. I must, how­ ever, crave your indulgence to make brief mention of two marked characteristics of our Swedish brethren. New Sweden is a colony of churchgoers. Nearly every adult Swede is a church-member and nearly ali the colonists, old and young, attend public religious services every Sunday the whole year round. And while prai~ing the Lord within their comfortable churches, they do not allow their horses to freeze out­ side'. The Swedes do not forget that " a merciful man is n1erciful to his beast." In the rear of every Swed­ ish church you will see a long, low log hovel or stable. The openings between the logs are all tightly chincked up, and here, even in the coldest days of winter, the ORATION BY RON. W. W. THOMAS, JR. 87 horses stand in the long double rows of stalls, blanketed, comfortable and steaming with warmth, while their owners worship God with clear consciences in His te1nple hard by. I rejoice also to state that New Sweden is and always has been a temperance colony. There was never a

BAPTIST CHURCH IN NEW SWEDEN. rum shop in the settlement, and strong drink has ever been as good as unknown throughout this com­ munity. The Swedes have devoted the fruits of their labors to improving their farms, increasing their stock, and rendering their hornes more comfortable and beautiful. They have never squandered their health or wealth in rum. 88 THE STORY OF. NEW SWEDEN.

Time will now only permit me to speak briefly of the status of New Sweden to-day, and of some of the results which this Swedish colony has achieved on American soil. New Sweden has already celebrated this twenty-fifth year of her existence by he coming incorporated as a

L, P. LARSON. FIRST SELECTMAN OF NEW SWEDEN.

town, on the twenty-ninth day of January last, and taking her place as a full fledged municipality among her sister towns in Maine . ... --The.. tQ.wnof New Sweden :numbers to-day seven ~·.-· •""""''"•••w•. ,,,,.• , '•••"••"" ••••• "•,,_,,, « - ~~• ,,<~" v-·.,e~-··••'-"'"""'":'-""'"'"""~~""<-v-,..-~~·""'-''"""""' hundred and )eventeen inhabitants, but th~J~Q ... fiK'!!!~ ORATION BY HON. W. w~ THOMAS, JR. 89 represent less than one half of the Swedish settlement

~~~... """"··• "' w • < ,-.-~ •• ~~~~~·--···""if__,-. ._,._~~~:'-'"""-"-~·-"'""""'""~N«<'-<"'"-""""--""""-'<-•/"!»'Y"~'-'O~.•<:"~V.~'~'~·~«- '"-'~"" ·-~·'"'"·""'~>'>'"-~--~~v,•, ··~~"~·''"o~•<~·<- whicE~'1ies~ro'1ind about us. The colony soon outgrew the bound~~i~~~-~f-tbis---towrfsliip and spread over the adjacent portions of Woodland, Caribou and Perham, lying to the southward. Later our Swedish pioneers penet_rated into the forest to the west and north, and have there made perrnanent settlements. On June 1, 1892, the Swedes organized Township No. 15, Range 4, lying west of New Sweden, into a plantation, and named it " W estmanland" from one of the provinces of the Old Country; and on March 23, of this year, Township No. 16, Range 3, adjoining New Sweden on the north, was legally organized as "Stockholm,'' thus perpetuating the name of the beautiful capital of Sweden in our own state. New Sweden therefore, does not come solitary and alone to this quarter-centennial jubilee. She comes leading by the hand two fair daughters, W estmanland and Stockholm. Aye ! more. She comes leading her sons and daughters by hundreds from the adjoining American towns of Woodland, Caribou and Perham. And there is one son New Sweden leads with pecu­ liar pride to this feast. John Hedman, a Swedish lad, reared on this township, graduates this year with high honors at Colby University, Waterville, Maine.* Surely our Swedes_ have not forgotten that they are the countrymen of Linnoous and Swedenborg, of Geijer and Tegner and Victor Rydberg. Surely arnong the blackened stumps of their forest clearings, our Swedish pioneers have looked up to something higher and nobler than mere material prosperity. *John Hedman (1896), is instructor in modern languages at Colby University. 7 90 THE STORY OF NEW SWEDEN.

MAINE'S SWEDISH COLONY is situated to-day on seven different but adjoining towns, forming thus one compact settlernent, which numbers no less than one thousand four hundred and fifty-two Swedes, divided as follows :

New Sweden, (town) 717 Woodland, 279 Caribou, 103 Perham, 79 W estmanland, 109 Stockholm, 157 No. 16, Range 4, 8

Total, 1452

Nearly thirty times the little band of pilgrims that entered these woods twenty-five years ago. An in­ crease of over 2,800 per cent.

The following statistics embrace the entire Swedish settlement- the Greater New Sweden:

MARRIAGES, BIRTHS AND DEATHS. From the date of the settlement to the present day 'there have been celebrated 102 marriages, 481 babies have been born, and 140 individuals have died. In the last number are included many who died in Port­ land, Augusta, Boston and other places, but are interred in the New Sweden cemetery. Yet even ORATION BY HON. W. W. THOMAS, JR. 91 with these deaths included, the births out-number the deaths in the ratio 3.43 to 1. Is anything further wanted to prove the vigor of the Swedish race, and the healthfulness of the climate of Maine ?

CLEARINGS. The area of land cleared on each lot in the colony varies with the strength, skill and circumstances of the settlers, and the length of time since their arrival. The earlier colonists have of course, larger "felled pieces'' on their lots than the later comers; and the few, who were fortunate enough to bring with them the means of hiring help, have rnade rnore rapid pro­ gress in clearing their farrns of the forest, than the great majority who have been compelled to rely exclu­ sively on the ·labor of their own hands. Scarcely any of the .Swedes, however, have cleared less than twenty­ five acres, most have cleared from thirty to fifty acres, some from fifty to seventy-five, while a few, who have acquired more than one lot, are the happy owners of broad clearings of more than one hundred acres In extent. The Swedes have cleared their land in a superior manner, all the old soggy logs being unearthed, smaller stumps uprooted, and the larger knolls lev­ eled. In most of the earlier clearings, the stumps have been entirely removed, and the fields plowed as smoothly as in our oldest settlements. In the aggregate, these Swedes have cleared and put into grass or crops 7,630 acres of land, that twenty­ five years ago was covered with a gigantic forest. 92 THE STORY OF NEW SWEDEN.

BUILDINGS. The colonists have erected: 1 Capitol. 4 Churches. 3 Parsonages. 7 School houses. 2 Starch factories. 5 Shingle mills (these mills also have rotary saws, planers, sticking and clapboard machines.) 305 Dwelling houses. 362 Barns and hovels.

689 Buildings in all.

ROADS. 71 miles of road have been built, of which 46 miles are turnpiked and in excellent condition.

LIVE STOCK. Our Swedish settlers now own : 468 horses, worth, 42,950 287 colts, under 3 years old, " 5,810 27 oxen, " 810 479 cows, " 14,250 313 other neat cattle, " 2,504 497 sheep, " 1,485 150 lambs, " 300 117 swine, " 936 6000 poultry, " 3,000 Total value, $72,045 ORATION BY HON. W. W. THOMAS, JR. 93

CROPS. In 1894 the Swedish colonists harvested: Hay, 1500 tons, worth, $ 15,000 Wheat, 3616 bushels, " 2,905 Rye, 4,215 bushels, " 3,086 Oats, 60,000 bushels, " 23,920 Buckwheat, 3,445 bushels, " 1,469 Potatoes, 117,950 barrels, " 117,950 Total value, $164,330

DAIRY. In 18 94 the dairy product of the colony amounted to 30,000 pounds of butter, worth, $6,000 5,000 pounds of cheese " 500

Total value, $6,500

WOOL. In 1894 the colonists clipped 2,500 pounds of wool, worth, $500

EGGS. The egg product of 1894 amounted to 24,000 dozen, worth, $2,400

TOTAL VALUE OF FARM PRODUCT FOR 1894. Crops, $164,330 Dairy, 6,500 Wool, 500 Eggs, 2,400

Total, $173,730 94 THE STORY OF NEW SWEDEN.

FACTORIES AND MILLS. Product of factories and mills for 1894: 190 tons starch, worth, $11,720 21~500,000 feet, shingles, " 39,750 2,200,000 feet, long lumber, " 17,600

Total value, $69,070

VALUE OF SWEDISH BUILDINGS, CLEARINGS, TOOLS AND STOCK. Churches, parsonages and schools, $ 12,500 Factories and mills, 25,500 Farm buildings, 200,450 7,630 acres of cleared land, at $20 per acre, (cost of clearing), 152",600 Farming implements and machinery, 65,800 Live stock, 72,045

Total, $528,895

Value of farm products for 1894, $173,730 Value, factory and mill products, 1894, 69,070

Grand total, $771,695

And all this has been created where not the worth of a dollar was produced twenty-five years ago. ' These figures alone are eloquent. They need no eulogy. They speak for themselves. They tell the story of difficulties surmounted, of results accomplished, of work well done. But, my countrymen, those of you who have never lived in the backwoods, can have no ORATION BY HON. W. W. THOMAS, JR. 95

adequate conception of the vast labor and toil under­ gone in this wilderness to create the results I have enumerated, and which you see all around you. A settler's first years in the woods are a continual fight, hand to hand with savage nature, for existence. It is pleasant for us to-day to look out upon these broad fields, green with the growing crops, but do we know, can we calculate, how many blows of the ax, how many drops of sweat have been expended in turning each one of these seven thousand six hundred acres of cleared land, from forest to farm ? The story of New Sweden has no parallel in New England since the United States becarne a Nation. This Swedish settlement is the only successful agri­ cultural colony founded with foreigners from over the ocean in New England since the Revolutionary war, and surely in all America there is no agricultural set­ tlernent, so young as ours, that surpasses our model colony in progress and prosperity. And the good effects of the founding of New Sweden are not confined to this colony or this vicinity. As early as 1871 Swedish artisans and skilled workmen, drawn to Maine by New Sweden, began to find work in the slate quarries of Piscataquis county, in the great tanneries and saw-mills of Penobscot, and in the stores and workshops of Portland, Bangor, Augusta, Pitts­ field, Monson, Houlton, Presque Isle, Fort Fairfield, Caribou, and other cities and towns. Since the found­ ing of the colony the Swedish girls have ever fur­ nished needed and valuable help in our farnilies in all sections of the state. Sorne Swedish immigrants, 96 THE STORY OF NEW SWEDEN. who carne to us in independent circumstances, pur­ chased improved farms in Presque Isle, Fort Fairfield, Limestone, and other towns; while many Swedes with less means settled on abandoned farms in Cumberland, York and our other older counties. These deserted homesteads have been placed by the Swedes in a high state of cultivation; indeed Swedish in1migration is proving to be the happy solution of the "abandoned farms" question in Maine. The ·united States census of 1890, returned a Swed­ ish population in every county in Maine except Frank­ lin, and gave the total number of Swedes in our state, including children born jn this country of Swedish pa1"ents, at 2,546. To-day there' are in Ma·ine more than 3,000 Swedes as t~e direct result of the Swedish immigration enter­ prise. Furthermore the good accorn plished by New Sweden is not limited by the boundaries of our state. Skilled workrnen from New Sweden early obtained ernploy­ ment in the 1nills, factories and workshops of Boston, Worcester, Lowell, Fall River, Springfield and Brock­ ton in Massachusetts; Manchester and Concord in New Hampshire; Rutland and Bennington in Ver­ mont; Providence and Pawtucket in Rhode Island;. New Haven, Hartford, Bridgeport and Waterbury in Contlecticut, and in other rnanufacturing centers all over New England. And each little band as it settled down, formed a fresh nucleus, around which have continually gathered new throngs of Swedish immi­ grants. ORATION BY HON. W. W. THOMAS, JR. 97

Thus the overflow from New Sweden has reached and benefited all our sister states. In fact the estab­ lishment of this little colony of Swedes in the woods of Maine twenty-five years ago turned a rill from the strearn of Swedish immigration, which before all flowed west, upon New England, and added a fresh element of good, northern blood to every New England state. And Swedish immigration has benefited Maine in other ways besides the direct addition of several thou­ sand Swedes to our population. The best part of this fertile town, where we are now assembled, was run out into lots in 1861. For nine years Maine offered these lots to settlers. The offer was made under our settling laws, which did not require the payment of a dollar, only the perforrnance of a certain amount of road labor and other settling duties, which rnade the lot virtually a gift from the State to the settler. Yet not a lot was taken up. Until the advent of the Swedes no one was found willing to accept his choice of the lots in this town as a gift, pro­ vided he was required to n1ake his home upon it. The opinion of many in this vicinity upon the wis­ dom of the Swedes in settling here was pointedly expressed by a good citizen of Caribou. Walking out of the woods with him, in July 1870, a few days after the arrival of the first colony, I expatiated, no doubt with enthusiasm, upon the magnificent results which to my mind must flow from the enterprise. The gentleman listened to me patiently till I had finished, then turning squarely upon me in the road, he said: 98 THE STORY OF NEW SWEDEN.

"Mr. Thomas, you may say what you like, but I don't suppose there are bottles enough in that colony to hold the tears those poor, deluded creatures will shed before their first year is out." And not only was New Sweden without a settler on the morning of July 23, 1870, but several of the lots in the northern portion of Woodland plantation, which had years before been taken up by settlers, and on which clearings had been rnade, houses built, and crops raised, were now deserted by their owners, the houses with windows and doors boarded up, and the clearings

BUILDINGS OF ALFRED ANDERSON IN 1895,

commencing to grow up again to forest. Such was the condition of the last clearings the Swedish colony passed through on its way into the woods. These clearings are now settled by Swedes and smile with abundant harvests. The American pioneer who abandoned the clearing nearest New Sweden was happily ~ith us at our decen­ nial celebration in 1880, and joined in the festivities with wondering eyes. Mr. George F. Turner then told me of his attempt to settle in these woods. He came from Augusta in the spring of 1861, and took up lot No. 7, in Woodland. Here he built a house and barn, and cleared thirty-five acres of land. But there ORATION BY HON. W. W. THOMAS, JR. 99 were no roads. If his wife wished to visit the village, he was forced to haul her through the woods on a sled even in summer. No new settlers came in. His nearest neighbors, Dominicus Harmon and Frank Record, left their places and moved out to Caribou. Still he held on for two more years, alone in the woods. At last in the fall of 1868, he abandoned the clearing where he had toiled for seven long years, and moved out to civilization. "I left,'' said Mr. Turner, ''because in the judgment of everyone, there was no prospect for the settlement of this region. The settlers around me were abandon­ ing their clearings. Everyone said I was a fool to stay, and I at last thought so myself, and left. Little did I expect to see this day.'' The tide of settlement was ebbing away from these woods, when a wave froin across the Atlantic turned the ebb to flood. It has been flood tide ever since. With the founding of New Sweden, our state recov­ ered from the check in her career and again took up her onward march. From 1870 to 1880 Maine increased 22,021 in population; from 1880 to 1890, 12,150. And it is worthy of note that more than one-half of the increase of the entire state in both these decades has been in the county where lies our Swedish settle­ ment. Not only this, but the towns of Aroostook County that exhibit the most marked progress, are those lying nearest New Sweden. Woodland, the adjoining town to the south, in 1870, numbered 17 4 inhabitants, in 1890, 885- an increase of over 400 per cent. 100 THE STORY OF NEW SWEDEN. Perham to the southwest in 1870, numbered 79 citizens, in 1890, 438- an increase of more than 450 per cent. Caribou to the southeast, the town which has ever been the center for the trade of our Swedish settlers, and which perhaps has reaped the greatest advantages from their settlement- Caribou in 1870 numbered 1,410 inhabitaats. In 1890, it had grown to 4,087, -an increase of no less than 2,677 in population. And with this increase Caribou became the largest town in Aroostook County. The founding of New Sweden in the back woods of Maine called the attention of our own country, as well as Sweden, to our state, its resources and advantages. The files of the land office show that in addition to the Swedish immigration, Atnerican settlers upon our wild lands increased in 1871, the first y~ar after the arrival of the Swedes, more than 300 per cent. When the Swedes first entered these woods there was not a mile of railroad in Aroostook County. The nearest point reached by a railroad was some seventy miles distant in the Province of New Brunswick. The journey from Portland to Caribou then took three days. Many of you accomplished that entire distance yes­ terday by rail in ten hours. Two railroads now run into Caribou, but I seriously doubt if there would be a fo€>t of railroad in northern Aroostook to-day had it not been for the impetus given to this region by New Sweden. One special instance among- many may be given of the influence exerted by our Swedish settlement. Mr. ORATION BY HON. W. W. THOMAS, JR. 101

Albe Holmes, a potato starch manufacturer of New Hatnpshire, was induced to visit Aroostook County in 1870, by reading a newspaper notice of New Sweden. He put in operation the first potato starch factory in Aroostook at Caribou in 1872. These factories quickly increased. There are to-day in Aroostook County no less than 41 starch factories, with a yearly output of 8,000 tons of starch, worth $560,000 ; while the raising of potatoes and their rnanufacture into starch have grown to be among the chief industries of the county. And the good accomplished by New Sweden will not stop with its twenty-fifth anniversary, nor cease with this summer day. This successful Swedish colony will go on and fully accomplish its n1ission. It will continue to push out i!lto the great Maine forests to the north and west, and convert township after town­ ship into well-tilled farms and thriving villages. It will continue to attract to all sections of our state the best of immigrants- the countrymen of John Erics­ son, and the descendants of the soldiers of Gustavus Adolphus, and the " boys in blue" of Charles XII.­ and throughout the future it will confer upon Maine those numerous and important advantages which a steadily growing agricultural and industrial population is sure to bestow upon a commonwealth. To-day, New Sweden pauses for a moment to rejoice over the work already done. To-day also New Sweden gives an account of her stewardship, and shows you the results of twenty-five years' hard work- results achieved by the never-flagging industry, the rigid economy, the virtue, faith and hope of our Swedish brethren. 102 THE STORY OF NEW SWEDEN.

To you, American visitors- to the State of Maine, these Swedes may proudly say, '' Si monumentum quaeris, circumspice.'' New Sweden stands to-day a n1ontnnent of what can be accomplished in the wilder­ ness of Maine by strong arms and brave hearts in the short space of quarter of a hundred years. And I feel I an1 but giving expression to that which lies in the heart of every American here to-day, when in your behalf- aye, in behalf of our good State of Maine, I publicly thank our Swedish fellow citizens for the great work they have wrought in the woods of Maine. But most of all are our thanks due to you, survivors of that first little band of fifty-one souls; to you, and your comradeR who sleep in the graveyard yonder, who with "faith in the State of Maine and faith in its messenger, twenty-five years ago sailed from your native land to follow me over the ocean, and who here in the primeval forest laid broad and deep the founda­ tion for the great things we have seen this day, ~nd of still greater things which will be se.en in the future, for the good of our state. Maine thanks and honors ·you. You and your deeds will not be forgotten as long as the history of our state is recounted a1nong tnen.

As the orator concluded, the applause, which had been frequent throughout the delivery of the address, broke forth again and continued for several minutes, the audience finally rising en masse and cheering heartily. ADDRESS OF WILLIAM WIDGERY THOMAS. 103

The choir sang, '' Columbia, We Love Thee."

The President: It gives me great pleasure now to present to you our fellow country-wotnan, the Swedish wife of the founder of this colony. The applause which followed this announcement was continuous, and the enthusiastn increased as Mrs. Thomas arose and gracefully bowed her acknowledg­ ments. The President: I have the pleasure of introduc­ ing to you the father of the founder of the colony, Hon. W. W. Thomas, senior, ninety-two years old. Mr. Thomas as he rose was greeted with prolonged applause. He was evidently taken by surprise in being called upon, yet despite his great age, he advanced with a firm step to the front of the tribune, stood erect, and spoke with a full, clear manly voice.

ADDRESS OF WILLIAM WIDGERY THOMAS, EX·MAYOR OF PORTLAND.

MR. PRESIDENT, AND LADIES AND GENTLEMEN : The Chairman has given me the credit of being a little older than I am. I am but ninety-one. I will not be ninety-two until next November, the seventh day. I had the pleasure of being here on the decennial anniversary of this colony fifteen years ago. I recol­ lect with gratification the cordiality and attention which was shown on that occasion to all the visitors here by the Swedish people. It gives me pleasure to say that the citizens of Maine are very glad to have 104 THE STORY OF NEW SWEDEN. you as their fellow citizens, and to extend to you all the privileges and the protection guaranteed by the national flag. We are proud of the wonderful advan­ ces that have been made here in the last twenty-five years, and hope that you will make still greater ones in the future. God bless you all. [Applause.]

The President: There is one thing more which must certainly be done. Since we have seen the father of the colony, the mother of the colony, and the grandfather of the colony, we ought surely to see our little brother, Oscar Thomas.

And the little boy was greeted with loud applause as his father placed him upon a chair where all might see him.

The President : The first boy and girl born in the colony. Permit me to introduce to you Mr. William Widgery Thomas Persson, and Mrs. Elizabeth White Goddard Thomas Swanberg, born Clase, and named for the mother of the founder of the colony.

The young man and woman stepped to the front of the platform amidst applause.

·The President: I am. informed that we have two representatives of the Governor on this tribune, and we must certainly hear a few words from them. I have the pleasure of introducing Mr. Daggett of Presque Isle, a member of the Governor's Council. ADDRESS OF RON. CHARLES F. DAGGETT. 105

ADDRESS OF RON. CHARLES F. DAGGETT, 'OF THE EXECUTIVE COUNCIL.

MR. PRESIDENT, AND LADIES AND GENTT.. EMEN: When I came here to-day I did not suppose I should be called upon for any remarks. I am not here for that pur­ pose; I will say, however, that Governor Cleaves was unable to come here and he asked my associate, Mr. Shephard, and myself to be present and represent him. I think it was in 1871 that I first visited this colony. It was when you first started. You were then beginning your homes. In order to acquire what you have since acquired, it demanded great energy and perseverance, and I am proud to say that this colony has never been lacking in those qualities. I remember when I was here in 1871 that where I now see beautiful fields I then beheld for the most part a dense forest. I noticed then that your homes were nearly ' all log houses, built, I think, by the State. In their places I now see good frame houses and commodious barns, and I have no doubt from the external appearances that the houses are well furnished within. I can safely say that in twenty-five years hence, the progress which you shall then have made will be even greater than the progress which you have made in the last twenty-five years, because you have overcome the first great obstacles; you have made your homes. You have become identified with the State of Maine, you are a part of Maine's people. It has been your pleasure to adopt our language and our customs, and also to enjoy our laws and institutions. On the other hand it has been our pleasure to profit by the example of honesty and good citizenship which has ever marked your dealings with men and conduct in society. Our State welcomed you within her borders twenty-five years ago. To-day· she rejoices in your success and in the fact that the growth and prosperity which you must inevitably attain will add still more to the wealth and honor of our State. [Applause.] 8 106 THE STORY OF NEW SWEDEN.

The President: I shall now call upon Mr. Shep­ herd of Rockport, another member of the Governor's Council. ADDRESS OF I-ION. HERBERT L. SHEPHERD, OF THE EXECUTIVE COUNCIL.

MR. PRESIDENT, AND LADIES AND GENTLEMEN : I am exactly in the situation of my friend, Mr. Daggett­ I did not expect to be called upon to make remarks. We came here at the request of the Governor, as he felt that the State ought to be represented, and he gave us to understand that in order to properly represent the State it was not necessary for us to make any remarks. Being a man of great penetration and discernment perhaps he concluded that the dignity of the State would be fully as well main­ tained by our keeping silence. At any rate he intimated, as I said, that it would not be necessary for us to say any­ thing. The result is that I am here absolutely without anything like preparation which an occasion of this kind demands, especially on the part of those who are unaccus­ tomed to public speaking. I will simply say on behalf of the Governor and Council that they feel a great interest in this settlement, and that they welcome your people and all other people of similar character to our shores; and I assure you that the hand of our State government will be extended to assist you in any undertaking where it would be justifiable so to do. I am glad to be here to-day; I am glad to see such evidences of prosperity, as meet the eye on every hand in this community. It is, certainly wonderful, the advancement that you have made in cultivating the soil and in preparing and maintain­ ing such beautiful homes as you have. [Applause.] The President: Kindly extend to the Governor our thanks for the part that the Council have taken in our anniversary meeting. ADDRESS OF HON. CHARLES A. BOUTELLE. 107

It gives me now great pleasure to introduce to you our representative to Congress from this district, Hon. Charles A. Boutelle, whom you always vote for, and whom I hope you will always continue to vote for in the future. [Applause.]

ADDRESS OF HON. CHARLES A. BOUTELLE, MEMBER OF CONGRESS. MR. PRESIDENT OF THE DAY, AND MY FRIENDS AND FELLOW CITIZENS, AND - AS HE HAS SO PLEAS­ ANTLY ADDED -MY CONSTITUENTS : I hope you have all been as much interested in the exer­ cises here to-day as I have been. The history of this enter­ prise inaugurated twenty-five years ago in the northern wilderness of Maine, as recounted by the founder of this. colony, has been to me as intensely fascinating as a romance. As I listened to Mr. Thomas' recital of the various stages· of progress in the development of this community, under the peculiar circumstances which surrounded it, I could not help being constantly reminded of that earlier period in our country's history when the first colony was established upon American soil. And I think that others, aR they listened to the wonderfully eloquent story, so simply and yet so effec­ tively told by my distinguished friend, whom I congratulate here upon the great good fortune that he enjoys in being able to witness the rich fruits of his endeavor iri behalf of his State and his country- I think that all must have felt reminded of Longfellow's beautiful story of the Plymouth colony, portraying the simplicity of faith, the humbleness of beginning, the sturdiness of strife with gigantic obstacles, the superb self-reliance of the people who had braved the storms of the ocean and the frowns of a rock-bound coast, to form a new home in the wilderness, which have found echo in my mind and my heart here to-day in the charming idyl recited by the lips of Maine's Commissioner, who a quarter 108 THE STORY 01!, NEW SWEDEN. of a century ago founded the colony of New Sweden in this virgin county of Aroostook, Maine. [Applause.] I have been familiar with every stage of the progress of this colony. In fact your history has been coincident with that of my own connection with public affairs in this state. It was in the spring of 1870, when William Widgery Thomas, jr., of Portland, was making his first effort in the inception of this enterprise, that I became the editor of the then only daily newspaper of Eastern Maine; and I reme·m­ ber as if it were but yesterday the conference I had with the father of this colony, in the little editorial room of the Whig & Courier building., which was afterwards so graphi­ cally delineated by our departed friend, the Hon. Daniel Stickney, in the Presque Isle Sunrise, as a ''shingle palace built on piles in the mud of the Kenduskeag stream." [Laughter.] Mr. Thomas. I recollect it well. I remember well when he called upon me to talk over the ways and means of interesting the Maine Legislature in the project of bringing from Sweden an acquisition to the popu­ lation of Northern Maine. I am not going to claim any share of the credit for your success, but I only want to remind you here, and to remind myself in a gratifying way, that I have been cognizant of all your struggles and been gratified with all your successes, and from the beginning to this jubilant day have followed the progress of this colony, with an interest I can hardly describe. And yet, notwith­ standing my familiarity with the history of your endeavor, notwithstanding my personal interest in your progress and prosperity, 1 must say that the massing of the statistics of your material progress by Commissioner Thomas here to-day has filled me as much with amazement as admiration. Surely if any man was ever justified in congratulating himself upon the wonderful fruition of an idea that first found birth in his own enterprising brain, and which was carried forward ADDRESS OF HON. CHARLES ,A. BOUTELLE. 109 to success largely by his own earnest endeavor, your founder, your earnest, zealous and unselfish friend, Mr. Thomas, is entitled to feel proud and gratified here to-day. I am glad for him; I am glad for the Thomas family, that they are able to be here on the soil of a people whom I have the honor to represent. [Applause.] And in the persons of thre.e gen­ erations of their family receive the recognition to which they are entitled at your hands. [Applause.] And as the rep­ resentative of this constituency I am glad to extend my thanks to Mr. Thomas, to his family and to all who have cooperated with him in doing such a great service to Aroos­ took County and to the State of Maine. [Applause.] I am very glad, too, that he has not only the good fortune to be accompanied here to-day by his venerable father, who has already exceeded by a generation the span of life allotted by th~ prophet, but that he has the happi~ess to come before you and before the people of Maine, with a hostage of his faith in the quality of the Swedish people even greater than that he exhibited when he founded this colony, in bringing to us as his best and sweetest gift, his beautiful and accom­ plished wife, the mother of his Swedish-American son. [Long applause.] This is a great country to which you have come, my friends; it is a great State of which you have become a part -and you are living to-day in the most progressive and thriving and promising county of that state. Mr. Thomas, with just pride, has claimed that the most rapidly progress­ ing communities of Aroostook County are those which lie nearest to New Sweden. I congratulate ym.1 also that New Sweden is situated directly adjacent to the most prosperous and the most promising communities in the State of Maine. From falling back in the last decennial census of the United States, Maine was saved by the growth of Aroostook County, and what New Sweden has done in contributing to the growth of Aroostook Mr. Thomas has 110 THE STORY OF NEW SWEDEN. told you so graphically and so conclusively that it is unnecessary for me to again go over the details. But I can­ not fail in justice to the prospects which are opening around us to-day with a beauty and promise never equaled in the previous history of this section, I cannot fail to congratulate you upon all the indications of a gigantic stride forward for Aroostook County within the next decade. That which has taken place in the last fifteen years since I last had the pleasure of visiting this colony, is almo~t beyond belief. I could have driven through your community to-day from border to border without having recognized the New Sweden of fifteen years ago. You have grown beyond the knowl­ edge of your friends of that period, and yet this community in which I stand at this moment, this magnificent section of which you are a part, has but entered upon the splendid development that is opening before it. When I came here to your decennial celebration- and I see on the platform here to-day some who shared with me that journey- we were all night. long struggling with the circuitous route and the heavy grades of a railroad across territory of another nation, and we only reached Caribou in the grim light of the early morning after a day and night journey from Bangor to get there. Yesterday I left my home in the late after­ noon and, reclining upon the luxurious cushions of a Pull­ man palace car, was whirled through Houlton and Presque Isle and into Caribou in the early evening. You are to-day within eight miles of direct railway communication, on Amer­ ican soil, with the whole United States. More than that, you are within eight miles of the fastest express trains that run anywhere in the American Union. In the twenty-five years during which you have been striving here in this dense forest to hew your way outward to the populous sections of the country, the great march of progress and the energy of our own people have brought the business facilities of the country up to your very doors. You are out of the woods. ADDRESS OF HON. CHARLES A. BOUTELLE. 111

You have already reached the top of Mount Pisgah and can not only look over but ride on the picturesque "Bangor and Aroostook" over into the promised land, and the out­ side world. [Applause.] I have taken a great interest in the progress of this colony, not simply from a material standpoint, but because of the character of the people of New Sweden. My visits to you have not been frequent because my district is one of ''magnificent distances," and you can imagine, perhaps, better than before you heard me struggling with the effort to make a speech, after the finished oration of Mr. Thomas, how terribly thin I should roll out if I undertook to spread myself over the whole district every two years. The terri­ tory which I have the honor to represent covers more than one-third and almost half of the area of the State of Maine - and when I say that, I mean that it includes a great deal more than half of the best people of the State of Maine. [Laughter and applause.] While I have not been able to visit you frequently I want to give you assurance, if assur­ ance be necessary, that I have had a deep interest in the success of this colony on account of the character of its people. I have been familiar with the traits of the Swedish, Danish and Norwegian people from my early youth. I have tested them on land and sea ; and I can hardly recall a voyage which I made in my youth and early manhood, when in the stress of the tempest, when the gale was at its height and a calm, clear eye and a steady hand were needed at the helm, that I did not turn to some Swede or Dane or Norwe­ gian to take his trick at the helm during the fury of the storm. [Applause.] I am not here to flatter you: I am thankful that I have no need to; but standing here to-day beneath these towering maples, and under the shadow of the flags of these two nations (pointing to the large United States and Swedish ensigns over the platform), it is but a graceful and a grateful thing for me to say, that in a profes- 112 THE STORY OF NEW SWEDEN. sional life that covered service on the sea both in the mer­ cantile marine in the pursuits of peace and in the navy in time of war, I have found no men of any nationality who ever proved more trustworthy, more capable, more truthful and more patriotic than the Swedes. [Applause.] And speaking from an experience not only in actual sea service but from a long legislative experience in connection with the maintenance and recruitment of our naval service, I can say to you that no better men of foreign lineage stand on the decks of our men-of-war to,.day, and no men who can be more relied upon to shed their ·blood to the last drop in the defence of the stars and stripes than the Swedish-American sailors of our navy. [Applause.] Twenty-five years! what a history it has unfolded in the life of this country! And you have been here during that great period working out your full share of the glorious destiny of the best state in the American Union and the best nation under the sun. I would not attempt to add one tint which might mar the beautiful picture that has been drawn by the master hand of Mr. Thomas here to-day. He speaks directly to you. And he has the advantage of me not only in his long, familiar intimacy with you, but even more in the fact that while he can talk to the men in the American tongue, when he wants to gain the hearts of the women I notice that he drops into sibilant phrases in Swedish which I did not understand. [Laughter.] I envied him his linguistic ability in that respect, but I may console myself, perhaps, after all, by the thought that while the ex-Com­ missioner, may thereby have some advantage with the maturer women of the colony, who retain the Swedish ver­ nacular~ I could perhaps "stand a hand" with him in my own native language, with that younger generation of New Sweden's bright-eyed daughters, who have been educated as Americans in the schoolhouse over yonder. [Laughter and applause.] ADDRESS OF HON. CHARLES A. BOUTELLE. 113

This is a remarkable occasion. I thought as I sat here on the platform, of the anomalous character of this celebration. How few occasions there have been in the history of man-· kind where people of different nationalities could assemble together in thanksgiving alike for the land of their nativity and for the nation of their adoption. [Applause.] Such occasions are not frequent. There have been many sad experiences on the part of people who have left their native lands for foreign shores. There have been men who have led emigrants to new countries who did not come back to face their colonists after twenty-five years. There have been cases where not prosperity but disaster has followed such adventures. Thank God we are here to-day to cele­ bratea glorious success. [Applause.] We are here to-day, American-born and Swedish-born, including those born here of Swedish parents, to be thankful to the Heavenly Father that the day is fair, that the sun does shine, and that it streams down through the dancing green leaves of a Maine forest to be radiated by the beautiful colors of the "Flag of the Free," in the "Home of the Brave." [Applause.] I am glad that in standing here as I do now it is so difficult for me to distinguish in your intelligent faces the men and the women and the children, who left Sweden to come to the help of my country, and the American-born men and women and children, who have come here to your festival from Fort Fairfield, and Caribou, and Presque Isle, and Bangor, and Portland and elsewhere. You have become a part of a homogeneous community. You are a part of us, and we are a part of you; and I want to thank you for what you have done up here in this lately unbroken forest of the State of Maine to build up Aroostook county and incite and encourage the enterprise and the capital that has already brought the iron-horse from Bangor across the forests to Caribou and will soon send its cherry whistle, sounding to Ashland and to Van Buren. [Applause.] I want to thank 114 THE STORY OF NEW SWEDEN. you and my friends from the other portions of Aroostook, not only for what they have done to build up this county, but for that grand self-reliance, for that superb public spirit and generosity which has caused the people of this county and broad-minded men in my own city and elsewhere to step forward at a time of almost unexampled commercial depression in this country, and pour out unstintedly their means and devote their best energies for the accomplishment of the most remarkable railroad enterprise, considering the circumstances, that has been carried through in this country in twenty-five years. [Applause.] You are going to reap the rewards of your liberality. You are not going to wait for another generation to reap where you have sown~ The golden harvest is already rolling in upon you, and all that Aroostook County needs is to stand steadfast in its faith in what God has given it, to go on with your strong, right arms and with your sturdy souls in making the most of the mag­ nificent heritage that you enjoy in this garden-county of the State of 1\!Iaine, and within the next twenty-five years we will see all these surrounding forests literally "blossoming like the rose!" [Applause.]

At the conclusion o£ t.he speech, under the direction of the President, the entire audience rose and gave three cheers for the speaker, "our representative in Congress. " Mr. Boutelle: I thank you, my friends. I£ you ever have a representative there who is one-half as worthy as his. constituency, he will have good reason to be proud. [Applause.] A selection o£ music was finely rendered by the band. The President: I will now introduce to you Col. Fred N. Dow, a member of Governor Perham's council in the early days of New Sweden. ADDRESS OF COL. FRED N. DOW • 115

.ADDRESS OF COL. FRED N. DOW,

LATELY COLLECTOR OF THE PORT OF PORTLAND.

MR. PRESIDENT: A meeting which is held like this in a community which owes its birth to a Thomas, and which names its children for a Thomas, might well be called a family gathering in which any is an intruder who cannot through kinship with our friend the ex-Commissioner, or through some connection with the enterprise with which his name is inseparably con­ nected, show his right to participate therein. I cannot, there­ fore, better introduce myself to yon than by saying that long before most of those in this audience knew him whom you honor to-day, I was intimate with him; we went to school together; we played together, and we have been friends from boyhood up. [Applause.] I also recall with a great deal of pleasure that in an offi­ cial way I had something to do, if not with the founding of this colony, .at least with the supervision of it, in its early days. It was my duty as a member of the Governor's Council to give attention to matters of moment in the incip­ ient days of this enterprise, to consider the expenditures in connection with it, and to pass opinion upon the question whether the State was expending too much. And I am free to say that whatever I might have then thought, to-day when there is spread before me such evidences of your pru­ dence and prosperity, I am glad to believe that there was nothing then provided too rich for your blood, and whatever was done. by the State to found this colony was a wise invest­ ment. [Applause. J What I have seen to-day in and about this community is an inspiring revelation ; but I confess that when some twenty years ago or more it was my privilege and pleasure to accompany my friend, the then Commissioner Thomas, on a visit to this colony, I think on the occasion to which he has 116 THE STORY OF NEW SWEDEN.

alluded, when the State surrendered the control of it and committed its destinies to the care of its own people, I had grave doubts as to its future. I saw then only the almost trackless forest in which you were to try to establish your homes; I saw then a thousand and one obstacles, which to my imagination, all untutored to such surroundings, seemed almost insurmountable, and I feared this colony would have only a struggle for existence a few short years and then die out, as other settlements in this vicinity had before failed. But I looked only at one side of the picture. I considered only a part of the elements which would enter into the solution of the problem. I failed to weigh the effect of the pluck, the push, the energy, which you had brought with you from your native land, those inborn electrical forces without which, whatever else be possessed, man can do little, and with which, though everything is lacking, so much can be accomplished. [Applause.] And I am glad to come back here to-day, after a lapse of twenty years, to acknowl­ edge that I was mistaken, to admit that I was a prophet of evil, and to freely confess that I did not have the faith in you to which you were entitled, and to congratulate you all upon the magnificent results of your enterprise. [Applause.] As I stand here under the flags of your country and mine - our country now, thank God I can say- I cannot forget that in similarity of experience and history we are after all · but one people. Many of you only a few years since left your homes abroad and came into the same wilderness to which the ancestors of others of us came years ago, and what you have experienced and accomplished in you own lives, to transmit to your children, we have inherited from our fathers, who, though before you, like you came into the wilds of early New England to conquer a home for themselves and for us, their children. Our differences, therefore, are after all but in a name. You are now with ADDRESS OF COL. FRED N. DOW. 117 us and of us, and as you have contributed so much to the growth and prosperity of this immediate vicinity, so to you in common with us is committed the future of what is now as much your state as it is ours. And so as I look forward I believe that here in Maine- the birthplace of most of us, the adopted home of the rest of us, the prized abiding-place. of all of us-it is in a union of that spirit of enterprise by which material prosperity is to be secured with that self­ respect which is the foundation upon which all the higher elements of progressive civilization must be built,. that the grandeur of all that pertains to a great state is to be assured. And for us to the manor born, what is the lesson taught by all that has been accomplished in this vicinity during the twenty-five years, the completion of which we celebrate to-day? Is it not that there is no better place in which to live than in Maine? [Applause.] Here the sky above is just as blue as anywhere; here the soil is just as prolific; here the waters are as pure; here the air is as healthy, as can be found anywhere the world over. Here abounds as much as anywhere all that makes for prosperity and pro­ gress. If indeed it is proper to regard life as a mere lottery in which prizes and blanks are awarded by chance, it may be true that great luck may sometimes be found elsewhere, but for every prize there are so many blanks that no one who has a chance in Maine ought- to venture elsewhere. For we may justly claim that nowhere in all the range of the rising and setting sun is there to be found a spot where more satisfactory returns are surer to be won than right here in our own good state· by just such enterprise, industry, and integrity as you, my friends from Sweden, have brought into this country. [Applause.]

The President: I now have the pleasure of in tro­ d ucing Hon. Albion Little of Portland. 118 THE STORY OF NEW SWEDEN.

ADDRESS OF HON. ALBION LITTLE OF PORTLAND.

MR. PRESIDENT AND LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: A little party of us in the city of .Portland have been looking forward for the last two or three weeks with fond anticipations of a grand good time in coming to the county of Aroostook and to the town of New Sweden, and I have to say to you on this delightful occasion that our fondest anticipations are more than realized, and that we are extremely happy in comingto your quarter-century celebra­ tion and being introduced to you and having an opportu­ nity of knowing you better than we have heretofore. [Applause.] I want to say to you, who have not recently traveled to the westward, that it is a most delightful trip from Portland to Caribou by railroad. A vestibule train starts from the Union Station, Portland, at 11.10 A. M., over the Maine Central Railroad, which is one of the best managed rail­ roads in the United States, and comes down to Bangor where you may be transferred to the Bangor and Aroos­ took Railroad, and come on to Caribou in a very short time, arriving at nine o'clock the same evening. This is a mag­ nificent railroad route coming to your doors. This railroad brings you in close contact with the outer world. You may well be proud of your railroad facilities. Do you know that such railroad facilities would not have been offered so soon to Aroostook County but for this settlement of Swedes in New Sweden? You have given great credit to my distinguished friend, Hon. W. W. Thomas jr., a son of not only one of Portland's but also of Maine's most distinguished and honored citizens for his sagacity, his wisdom and his leadership in bringing this colony to this place; and you do well. He has been a faithful leader. He has led you to a goodly land. There is no better farming land on the American con- ADDRESS OF HON. ALBION LITTLE. 119 tinent than this which lies here in Aroostook County. [Applause.] I have sometimes wondered why this colony ever came here. Why did you come to Maine? Why did you come to Aroostook County? Why did you come to this place now called New Sweden? You came here when the watchword was "Go West, young man I Go West and grow up with the country I" You have answered these questions here when you say that a quarter of a century ago, Mr. Thomas, whom you have seen fit to honor as "Father Thomas," came to you in your homes and told you of this great country, and that when he was hunting for game in the far-off wild woods of Maine, he had discovered some very excellent farming land, most favorably located in a healthy climate, well watered by living springs, lakes and rivers, which could be had on very favorable terms, for the taking and clearing. Although Mr. Thomas was then but a young man, his honest purpose and earnest endeavors inspired your confi­ dence. Without further guarantee, you banded yourselves together into a little colony and, trusting in your God and your accepted leader, leaving behind kindred, homes and native land, sailed over the wide, wide ocean, crossed seas and rivers, and traversed the unbroken forest to make for yourselves new homes in the wild woods of Aroostook County, where only wild beasts roamed. Here for ages the wild deer, moose and caribou had full sway, unmolested save by an occasional huntsman. Twenty-five years, quarter of a century, have come and gone. Hard times and long days of toil and hardships have come and gone; and to-day we see the results of your toil. The woodman's ax, the farmer's plow and the mechanic's tools have done their work, and they have done it well. Instead of the lofty pines, the grand old oaks, the evergreen cedars and other woods, we see immense grain fields and vast fields of waving grasses and broad acres of thrifty { 120 THE STORY OF NEW SWEDEN. growing potatoes, and well-fed horses and cattle on every hillside and plain. Instead of the old log cabin of your early settlement in the forest, we see well-planned framed houses and comfortable homes on well-made roads. We also see handsome churches where you worship God on His holy day, and good schoolhouses where your children are taught in the language of the country. All these are in har­ mony and keeping with modern civilization. Upon the advice of Mr. Thomas you came here, at the same time when, under the advice of Horace Greeley, car­ load after carload of the young men of Maine were going into the great western country and settling upon its vast prairies. Many of them wish they were back again, wish they had had the councils and advice of Mr. Thomas and gone east into Aroostook County and into New Sweden, where they would have been far better off. Some of them are turning their faces this way again. Their sons and daughters are looking eastward. This is the promised land. Recent developments have shown that the State of Maine is the best state in the union for farming. [Applause.] More than that it is the best state on this continent to raise states­ men in. [Applause.] [A voice: correct.] And as good as that, it is the best state on the American continent to raise children in. [Laughter and applause.] If Horace Greeley were alive to-day and could see the State of Maine as we see it, I have no doubt he would agree with me in giving this advice: Young man and middle-aged man, stay where you are. Cut down more trees, clear more land, dig up more stumps, plow more land, plant more pota­ toes, arrd tickle the earth with hoe and spade, and laugh in time of harvest. This ought to be, as it is, a proud and happy day for you all, as well as for Mr. Thomas. It is a sort of red letter day for him with the full light of noonday sun turned upon his noble deeds and great achievements. ADDRESS OF RON. SETH L. LARRABEE. 121

As I have said you do well to give unstinted credit to my distinguished friend for his great goodness to you in bring­ ing you so safely to this promised land. It is right. But, my friends, did it ever occur to you that perhaps his kind acts, great wisdom, his great faithfulness toward you, and his noble deeds, may have been the very stepping-stone to that mansion of a nobleman in your native land, where he entered and wooed and won one of the brightest and fairest daughters in all that charming land of the midnight sun to be his faithful and loving wife. [Applause.] Did it ever occur to you that if his connection with this colony contributed in any way, directly or indirectly, to make this beautiful woman queen of his home, he has been amply repaid. Yes, one hundred-fold. [Great applause.]

At this point the President sprang. to his feet and shouted ·to the audience, "Stand up and give a cheer for Mr. Thomas' Swedish wife." And, under cover of the cheering that ensued, Mr. Little resumed his seat, the President apologizing for interrupting the course of the speech, and explaining that the enthusiasm aroused by the speaker had quite carried him awa.y. The President: I have the pleasure ~f introduc­ ing to you Ron. Seth L. Larrabee of Portland, whom the people of New Svyeden hope to see the next Speaker of the Maine House of Representatives. [Applause.]

ADDRESS OF HON. SETH L. LARRABEE OF PORTLAND,

REPRESENTATIVE TO THE MAINE LEGISLATURE.

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: I only come forward to speak the great pleasure I have in attending these very interesting exercises, and to tell you 9 122 THE STORY OF NEW SWEDEN. how deeply I was impressed as I drove across your country, over your remarkably good roads this morning, and am still impressed, with the evidences of thrift and industry, which appeared upon almost every hill top and hill side within the range of my vision. The orator of the day and one of the gentlemen who have preceded me have referred to some financial aid that was furnished by the State to this colony in the early days of its existence. I think there is no visitor present upon this tribune or in this auditorium who will not cheerfully admit that whatever sum was then paid for your assistance, was a remarkably good investment for the State of Maine. [Applause.] The Swedes of Maine owe no financial debt to the State. They owe her nothing but loy­ alty to her institutions and her laws and that degree of loyalty only which they have for a generation cheerfully rendered. [Applause.] The obligation moves from the opposite party. The State owes to you the thanks of the present generation and of all future generations of its citi­ zens for the great object lessons in frugality, thrift, industry and prosperity which you have so fully and practically illustrated upon these hills of northern Maine. [Applause~] The President: I shall now call upon Hon. Edward Wiggin o£ Presque Isle, one of our State senators from Aroostook County.

ADDRESS OF HON. EDWARD WIGGIN OF PRESQUE ISLE.

STATE SENATOR.

MR. PRESIDENT, AND FELLOW CITIZENS OF NEW SWEDEN: I shol!ld most gladly have declined the invitation to say a word to you on account of the lateness of the hour, but at the earnest request of your president, and also of my friend Mr. Thomas, I will say one word, merely. In the first place, fellow citizens, I congratulate you most heartily upon the success which has attended the efforts of yourselves and ADDRESS OF HON. EDWARD WIGGIN. 123 your sires and your mothers upon this wilderness township, which has made this day and the celebration of this day possible. I know something of the history of this colony. I watched it from its birth, from the first year you came into these woods; and I will say to you frankly, and espec­ ially to you older ones, the original members of this colony, that when you reached Aroostook County the people of Aroostook had very little faith in you. We did not believe you would stay here ten years, and we thought it would cost more to get you out of the county than it ever did to get you in here. Mr. Thomas: That is true. Mr. Wiggin: That is the idea we had of you. But we did not know you; and to-day I say I congratulate you upon the grand success which has made this celebration possible .. When I go out in other portions of the state and try to induce others to come here, I point them to the success of this colony- men and women who came here without being able to speak a word of the language, who knew nothing of our customs, of ottr manners, of our ways of work, but who came here into this wilderness township and hewed out their own way, until you have now one of the most prosperous towns in Aroostook County. I say that we did not know you, but we ought to have known better. What is it that has made this success here? It is Anglo-Saxon pluck. You are of our blood. Why is it that you have so soon and so naturally amalgamated with us and become in only twenty-five years an Aroostook town, an American town? It is because you are of the same blood as ourselves, who were here when you came. I say it is a wonderful thing, the success that you have accomplished here. Think of it, fellow citizens of Maine. At the close of the war, "when Johnnie came marching home/' there wasn't a tree cut on this whole township except what the lumbermen had cut and floated down these streams to be 124 THE STORY OF NEW SWEDEN. sawed at the mills- and within the short space of twenty~ five years this grand success has been achieved. And I want to say to you as an Aroostook man, as one who has been interested in the settlement and development of this county, that we of Aroostook are proud of you, are proud of the work you have done here, and that Aroostook is glad and proud to welcome New Sweden to the sisterhood of Aroostook towns. You, the fathers of this colony, had some things greatly in your favor which made your success possible, perhaps. In the first place a colony of you came here together, and you could mutually aid and assist one another. Another thing was that you had a true and tried leader in whom you had confidence; and I venture to say that not a man who came across with that ship and helped to settle this colony will ever say that W. W. Thomas Jr., ever went back on him. [Applause.] He was true to you all the way through; and to-day, on this twenty-fifth anniversary of your leaving your native land, as he comes back to you, you are proud and glad to welcome him, and he is glad to meet every man and woman who is left of that little colony and their descend­ ants here in this beautiful town. [Applause.] Then again you all thought that you had the State of Maine behind you; and although as Mr. Thomas says you had not the scratch of a pen of a contract, you had the honor of Maine behind you and under you and yon relied upon it, and you had reason so to ~o. But, as my friend who has preceded me says, you do not owe the State of Maine anything. All through the commencement of this colony, at the time when these"trees were being hewed down and these farms made, you paid as you went. You paid your bills as you went along, and the State never had a pauper in New Sweden. There is another thing that I am proud to congrat.ulate this colony upon and that is the fact that when, we look over the records of our criminal courts it is rarely if ever LETTERS. 125

we see a criminal there whose name shows to us that he is a Swede. I say it is a record to be proud of. [Applause.] I don't want to say this to you in flattery, I don't want. to flatter you in any way, but I want to tell you this as a truth - that the County of Aroostook is proud of the success you have made here, is proud to welcome this community to the sisterhood of towns, and we bid you all Godspeed jn your further efforts for success in this town o~ New Sweden. [Applause.]

The President then read the following letters :

STATE OF MAINE. EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT. June 19, 1895. Hon. William W. Thomas .Jr., Portland, Me. MY DEAR MR. THOMAS:-! regret exceedingly that official engagements will prevent my acceptance of the cordial invitation to attend the celebration of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the settlement of New Sweden. The colony was established by you at a time when many of our sons were seeking other communities and states for supposed greater opportunities than our State then offered; and the lapse of twenty-five years has demonstrated the wisdom of inviting Swedish immigration to our State; and they have found superior advantages here. No better class of citizens come among us. They are intelligent, frugal and industrious; they are loyal to our laws, and devoted to our institution; they build homes among us, and believe in the Christian faith and the schools. The State has profited by the set­ tlement of New Sweden; and the appreciation of our people is due to you for the great interest you have always manifested, and the service you have rendered the State. Yours very truly, HENRY B. OLEA VES.

PORTLAND, June 18, 1895. F. 0. Landgrane Esq., Sec.'y Q. C. Committee, New Sweden. MY DEAR SIR:-I have to acknowledge your very kind invita­ tion to be present at the Quarter Centennial of your town. I helped at its foundation, and am glad to rejoice with you over the very creditable past, which you have already made certain; and the still 126 THE STORY OF NEW SWEDEN. better future I am sure is in store for you. Other engagements prevent me from saying so in person, but I send you my congratu­ lations on what you have done, and my best wishes for your future welfare. Very truly yours, T. B. REED.

At the call of the President, the entire audience now arose and gave three rousing cheers for "Tom Reed, the next President of the United States."

ELLSWORTH, MAINE, June 20, 1895. Hon. William W. Thomas Jr : MY DEAR MR. THOMAS:- I regret very much that I cannot attend the anniversary celebration of the settlement of New Sweden; but imperative business engagements keep me here. When you brought the little band of ~wedes from the Old World into the state of Maine, and effected their settlement in our young, border county, you accomplished one of the most picturesque events in the history of the State. Ever since that day I have watched with interest and delight, the growth of the little colonyin all the elements which go to make prosperity, and have seen, with satisfaction, its harmonious blend­ ing with the older population, the laws and the institutions of Maine. The State owes its gratitude to you and to this young, frugal, sober, happy people who have come from afar into our midst. They belong to us, for their home is here, and their loyalty is not to their mother country, but to our commonwealth, and over and above all, to our great national republic. These Swedes have demonstrated the truth of the old Greek adage, that" The land where thou prosperest is thy country." With every good wish for yourself personally, and for the suc- cess of the celebration, I am Sincerely yours, EUGENE HALE.

LEWISTON, June 10, 1895. F. 0 Land,qrane, Esq. : DEAR SIR:- I have always felt a profound interest in the New Sweden settlement, and have delighted in its constant progress. For the present accept my congratulations, and for the future my good wishes. I regr-et that previous engagements will prevent me from participating in its Quarter Centennial festivities. Very truly, WILLIAM P. FRYE. LETTERS. 127

LEWISTON, June 22, 1895. F. 0. Land,qrane, Esq., See'y of Committee : MY DEAR SIR :-I have delayed replying to your kind invitation to be present at the Quarter Centennial Celebration of the settle­ ment of New Sweden, in the hope that I could see my way clear to accept. But at the last moment I find myself unable to go. I need not say to you that it would have afforded me great pleas­ ure to be present on an occasion intended to commemorate the twenty-fifth anniversary of a town founded under so unique cir­ cumstances as New Sweden was, and grown into so manly propor­ tions in so brief a period. It seems but yesterday since my good friend, Mr. Thomas, pointed the way of the stalwart Swedish pio­ neers who crossed the Atlantic and found their way to the primeval forest of Aroostook, where now appear so fine farms and so attrac­ tive homes. It is rarely ever that so early success crowns the work of the pioneers. I most heartily congratulate you and the Swedish-Americans of New Sweden on the happy auspices under which you celebrate the Quarter Centennial of your prosperous town. Please accept my thanks for your courtesy, and my best wishes for the success of your celebration. Cordially yours, NELSON DINGLEY JR.

BELFAST, June 15, 1895. Hon. W. W. Thomas Jr.: DEAR SIR: - Please accept my cordial thanks for your kirid invitation to be present at the Quarter Centennial Celebration at New Sweden. It was both brave and enterprising on your part to enter upon so great an undertaking as the transferring of a large colony of people across the Atlantic and settling them in the fertile county of Aroostook, which is becoming by the energy and intelli­ gence of its people the garden spot of New England. The success of your enterprise is demonstrated by the thrift of the Swedish colony, and the prosperity which seems to be assured for them in the future. Their intelligence, civility of manner and willingness to work, cannot but secure for them a high degree of prosperity, and materi­ ally add to the wealth of the State. Moreover a community of diligent, intelligent, industrious and saving people will not fail to have. a good influence upon other communities around them. I earnestly congratulate you upon what I feel assured will be the success of the Quarter Centennial Celebration at New Sweden, and the valuable results which I am sure cannot fail to grow 'Out of it. 128 THE STORY OF NEW SWEDEN.

Hoping for the continued prosperity of the Swedish colony, and that the people of our State will never fail to give credit to you for your great and patriotic effort in establishing it, I am with sincere regards Very truly yours, s. L. MILLIKEN.

BRUNSWICK, ME., June 23, 1895, F. O. Landgrane, Sec. 'y New Sweden Q. 0. Committee. MY DEAR SIR:-It is with much disappointment that I am com­ pelled at the last hour to forego the anticipated pleasure of being with you in the celebration of a most interesting event in your history and the history of our State. I have also a personal reason and right to share your satisfaction; for the conditions calling for this celebration serve to justify, after many years, a judgment and sentiment of mine, which at the time were not shared by some of those who now justly applaud your success, and appreciate its bearings on yo;ur well-being and ours. Indeed these ends are not now diverse; they are identified. This is the very ground of our greeting. We are together citizens of this state and of this great republic. Whatever its privileges are, what­ ever its glory is, whatever its corresponding responsibilities, we share them on equal terms and with brotherly regard. I am sure our people recognize the great qualities which have marked the race of your origin in its career of history, and which are still manifest in its magnanimous and patient bearing in the difficult questions of the day affecting your old kingdom across the waters. We appreciate what you bring us to mingle with the elements which are to form the future character of this people. You rein~ force for us the strength of the home virtues -I mean by this the virtues which preserve and enoble the home, and so reach the vital point of a nation's life. Add to these the spirit and body of a brave, energetic, robust manliness, and we have the safeguard of liberty and honor and true prosperity. With these, you take your place with this great people; you cherish the hopes, the pride, the loyalty, which will ensure the best ends of living for all the citizens of the republic. You accept the duty, the service, the sacrifice by which the best things are won and held. In the great issues which are to be tried in this country within the next" quarter-century," you will bear your part well, which if not called to be conspicuous in public history, will yet tell with irresistible force in the vital currents of a people's character. In the sterling qualities of manhood and womanhood which you cher- LETTERS. 129 ish are the fiber and life-blood of which human history is to be wrought. This may strike rather too solemn a strain for the festivities of your joyous occasion. If I had the inspiration of the presence of all the tokens of well-doing and well-being which surround you, I might catch the key-note from you. But accept what I say as also belonging to you, and as coming from me with sincerity and affec­ tion. With all greetings for the future as for the past. Truly yours, JOSHUA L, CHAMBERLAIN.

PARIS, ME., June 22, 1895. F. 0. Landgrane, Secretary of Committee. I regret that I am compelled to forego the pleasure of being present at the Quarter-Centennial Celebration of New Sweden, I have been deeply interested in the establishment and growth of the " Swedish colony" from the beginning, and now I rejoice with you in the great success that has crowned your efforts. You have honored your native land and have added honor and prosperity to the State of Maine, Very truly yours, SIDNEY PERHAM.

OFFICE OF THE EVENING EXPRESS. PORTLAND, ME, June 20, 1895. F. 0. Landgrane, Sec'y Q. 0. Committee, New Sweden, Me. DEAR SIR:-Your kind note of invitation to be present at the celebration of your Quarter Centennial is received, and it is with great regret that I am compelled, by press of business engage­ ments, to forego the pleasure which a trip to your county at such a time would give me. Permit me to express to you my cordial congratulations upon the growth and prosperity of your town We in Portland have been much interested in your development; first, because we have learned to have great respect for your people, so many of whom have become our people; and second, because your father in Amer­ ica, Hon. W. W. Thomas, Jr., is our townsman. So we have watched and applauded your efforts to grow up a sturdy settlement in the north woods, and we have been more than gratified with the result. Thanking you most sincerely for your invitation, and wishing for·you all a continance of happiness and prosperity, in this, our common country, I am, sir, Most sincerely yours, GEORGE W. NORTON. 130 THE STORY OF NEW SWEDEN.

OFFICE OF GENERAL MANAGER, MAINE CENTRAL RAILROAD. PORTLAND, June 11, 1895. F. 0. Landgrane, Esq., Secretary New Sweden, Maine: DEAR SIR:- I beg to acknowledge the receipt of your courteous invitation to be present at the Quarter Centennial Celebration of the founding of New Sweden to be held on June 25, and to assure you how deeply I regret that imperative business engagements will prevent my acceptance You of New Sweden do well to celebrate this anniversary of the founding of your colony, now firmly established in our grand old commonwealth after a quarter-century's struggles and trials. The State of Maine is proud of you, your sterling worth, your great results. You may well take pride in the mental worth, in the industry and economy, in the indomitable perseverance, and above all, in the high principles which have ever characterized the peo­ ple of New Sweden. You have accomplished much and in such manner as to give bright promise of a noble future. I desire to add my congratulations to the many which you will receive, and my earnest hopes that your anniversary may be as happy as the past it celebrates. Believe me Very truly yours, PAYSON TUCKER.

OFFICE OF GENERAL MANAGER, BANGOR AND AROOSTOOK R, R. BANGOR, MAINE, June 11, 1895. F. 0. Land,qrane, Esq., Secretary, New Sweden, Me.: DEAR SIR :-I hasten to thank you for your cordial invita­ tion to be present at the Celebration of June 25, and to express my regret that engagements elsewhere will prevent my accepting. I know that the colony of New Sweden has been an important factor in drawing population to Northern Aroostook, and in part made the Bangor and Aroostook railroad possible. It is my belief that the road will bring a still greater measure of development and prosperity to your model Swedish colony, which has every reason to celebrate the wonderful progress made in the first twenty-five years of its existence. Yours truly, F. W. CRAM.

Rev. Frank J. Liljegren, of New Haven, Connecti­ cut, a former pastor of the Baptist church at New Sweden, now gave an address in the Swedish lan­ guage which was received with applause. CLOSING EXERCISES. 131

The old settlers, Capt. Nicholas P. Clase, Nils Persson, Anders Swensson and Truls Persson, four members of the ori6inal colony, then stood up on the tribune where they had seats, and were pre­ sented to the audience by the President. The fifth survivor of the original twenty-two men, Nils Olsson, the first lay minister, was confined to his house by sickness. In response to earnest and vociferous calls from the Swedes, Hon. W. W. Thomas, Jr., arose and addressed them in the Swedish language. This speech aroused great applause and laughter. In­ deed at one point the enthusiasm reached such a pitch that the Swedes all stood up and cheered loud and long, but what it was all about the editor of this volume is unable to say. Another selection by the band closed the formal exercises of the day. Tables already spread, were now brought forth from some hidden nook of the forest and placed upon the tribune_, and here the guests of New Sweden were entertained with an elaborate and sumptuous banquet, while the Swedes dined in picnic parties throughout the grove. Late in the afternoon the guests drove out of the Swedish woods carrying with them golden opinions of New Sweden, but the Swedes kept up the cele­ bration with speeches, music and song till close of this happy and historic day. APPENDIX.

THE FIRST SETTLERS. List of the twenty-two men of the first Swedish colony, who sailed from Sweden with Ron. W. W. Thomas, Jr., June 25, 1870, together with the lots upon which they settled, in the township of New Sweden, and the adjoining Plantation of Woodland.

NICHOLAS P. CLASE, Lot No. 135, New Sweden. NILS OLSSON' 115, " ",, " " CARL Voss, " 11L~, ",, " GoTTLIEB T. PILTS, 114, " ",, " OscAR G. W. LINDBERG, " 114.76' " ",, JoNs PERssoN, 116, ,," ,," ",, SvEN SvENssoN, 117, " KARL.G. HARLEMAN, '" " 118, " " JANNE L. LAURELL, 12172', ",, "',, " " TRULS PERSSON, 133, ,," ",, NILS PERSSON' 134, ,," " ,, ,, 0LoF G. MoRELL, " 135U J OHAN PETTER JOHANSSON, " " 136, " " .ANDERS JOHANSSON, " 137, " ",, " .ANDERS SVENSSON, 138, " " ,, " 0LOF OLSSON, " " 138U, "

PEHR PETTERSSON' Lot Letter A, Woodland.,, SoLQMON JoHANssoN, B, " " ,, JoNAS BoDI~, " " c, JoNAS BoDIN, JR., " " D, " FRANS R. w. PLANK, E, ",, " " JACOB JOHANSSON, " F, " APPENDIX. 133

THE PLANTATION OF NEW SWEDEN.

Early in March, 1876, some thirty of the first com­ ers in the colony were naturalized by the Supreme Court sitting in Houlton, and on April 6, 1876, New Sweden was legally organized into a plantation. An election was held, and officers chosen the same day. The following were the first officers of the Plantation of New Sweden :

NILS OLSSON, l GABRIEL GABRIELSON, ~ Assessors. PEHR 0. JuHLEN, j

CARL J. ToRNQVIST, Clerk,

TRULS PERSSON, Treasurer, Collector and Constable.

JOHN BoRGESON, l JoHN P. JAconssoN, ~ School Committee. PETTERPETTERSON, j 134 THE STORY OF. NEW SWEDEN.

THE TOWN OF NEW SWEDEN.

New Sweden was incorporated as a town on January 29, 1895. The first town election was held on the March 6, 1895, and the following persons were elected the first officers of the Town of New Sweden :

LARS P. LARSON, l 0LA H. NELSON, J Selectmen. CARL G. EKl\fAN,

AxEL H. ToRNQUIST, Town Clerk.

PEHR 0. JuHLIN, Treasurer.

ANDERS NELSON, Collector and Constable.

ERIK RINGDAHL, Constable.

MICHAEL U. NORBERG, Sup't.l , FRANK 0. LANDGRANE, Clerk . • I Or.. A H · NELSON' ~ School Committee. LARS LUNDVALL, I CARL J. JoHANSON, ALFRED A. ANDERSON, J

CARL G. EKMAN, } Truant Officers. 0LA H. 1{ELSON,